


Underlined Twice

by DeathknightQ



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angel Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Was Raphael Before Falling (Good Omens), Demon Aziraphale (Good Omens), M/M, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 03:50:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 30,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21155153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeathknightQ/pseuds/DeathknightQ
Summary: Gabriel tries to change history to prevent Crowley and Aziraphale from preventing the Apocalypse. It goes about as well as can be expected.





	1. Before the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Подчёркнуто дважды (Underlined Twice)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28087530) by [The_Great_Divide](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Great_Divide/pseuds/The_Great_Divide)

> Many thanks to my beta, Verre, who did NOT run screaming when I dropped a 30k genre-hybrid on her with no warning.

Time had still flowed oddly on the first creative day, what with gravity still a work in progress. The veil between Heaven and the physical universe had been thinner, too, the barest of gossamer. The spellwork that would later be needed to punch through to communicate between Heaven and the physical realm or even between two spirit beings hadn’t been necessary, then. The seconds stretched on for centuries as angels spun the raw power from the big bang into planetary bodies. 

Gabriel watched his team carefully, dictating spin and mass and planetary order. He gave approbation when it was appropriate, criticism when needed (usually in written form, easier to take that way). His team was crisp and disciplined, working in dutiful silence.

Raphael’s team-- well, the less said about Raphael’s team the better. They carried on pointless conversations with each other. Raphael carried on pointless conversations with them. They painted nebulas in whatever shapes and colors suited their individual fancies, with no uniformity or pattern at all. They made pulsars that flashed out rude messages in some made-up language. Worse, they didn’t even keep to themselves. Gabriel had had to discipline his own team sharply on several occasions for unnecessary conversation with members of Raphael’s group. Aziraphale most of all. Gabriel had finally had to assign him to asteroid duty on the far end of the active sector just to keep him quiet and on task.

“Your team needs more supervision,” Gabriel told Raphael for what felt like the hundredth time.

“My team is fine,” Raphael said, not looking up from the nebula he was working on instead of supervising his clucking flock. “More creation per photon-interval than yours by 3%, or so Metatron tells me.”

That was the part that rankled most of all.

_“Gabriel? Ah, sir?”_ the prayer sounded at the same time Raphael spoke, even though only Gabriel could hear it. Aziraphale, the chatterbox. 

Gabriel ignored Aziraphale in favor of responding to Raphael.

“Well, _I_ don’t do my people’s work for them instead of supervising.”

“My people know what they’re doing and to come get me if there’s a problem. They don’t need me hovering over them every second,” Raphael said, as if just talking to Gabriel was making him tired. “As fun as it is chatting about how upset you are that my methods get better results, I’m in the middle of something. Go… bring joy to someone else.” His words were polite, but his tone of voice was dismissive. Raphael’s habit of double-talk was yet another item on the list of things wrong with Raphael. 

It dawned on Gabriel that Raphael’s hair was tied back, and his robes were girded tightly to his body.

_“Sir, I know this is probably a bad time--”_ Aziraphale prayed again. Gabriel silenced the prayer and backed up from Raphael’s project. Building a nebula didn’t require precautions, but transitioning one into a black hole did. 

“You shouldn’t be doing that,” Gabriel scolded.

Raphael finally looked up, fixing Gabriel with a hard stare. His eyes were purple, like Gabriel’s, but that was where the resemblance ended. Raphael had the ugliest corporation Gabriel had ever seen: pointed face, spindly appendages. Even his patterning was wrong. Every other angel with patterning had mottling, perhaps colored lips. Raphael’s corporation had a faint gold squiggle in front of each ear. 

“So I should just send one of the lads, and if he goes the way of Mariel, well, there are plenty in the Third Choir, what’s one gone?” Raphael asked. The question was clearly rhetorical.

Mariel had been the one to discover that even a standard black hole’s singularity was powerful enough to affect an angel. He had never been seen again, in Heaven or the Universe. Had he been torn apart? Crushed? Sent to another dimension? Or was he simply motionless, unable to pull himself free, like the photons on the event horizon? No one knew, and God wasn’t telling.

Raphael snapped his fingers, one hand below and above the nebula. All molecular movement stopped.

“I’m a lot less likely to have a problem than they are.”

“Excuse me, Gabriel, sir?” This time the interruption wasn’t Aziraphale, but one of Raphael’s. 

“Can you not see we’re talking?” Gabriel demanded sharply. Undisciplined, disorderly, disrespectful – exactly like her commander.

“Well, sir, one of yours-- I think he’s been calling for you.” The angel’s hands were folded decorously, but her even voice made the entire sentence reek of unrepentance.

“And I’m busy,” Gabriel said over-patiently. 

Raphael had the audacity to roll his eyes.

“What’s the problem, Khizir?” Raphael asked his subordinate. 

“There was a-- a storm, I guess you could call it. The star he was hanging asteroids on plowed right through it. I’ve never seen anyone’s wings look like that, Raf. What should I do?”

Aziraphale, it had to be. 

“_Raphael,_” Gabriel corrected the junior angel, since her superior clearly wasn’t going to. “Aziraphale is an angel of the Lord. Matter isn’t going to do him any lasting harm.” Gabriel made it clear with his tone of voice that he was stating the obvious.

_“I’ll find someone else for asteroid duty, don’t worry,”_ Gabriel shot back along the channel to Aziraphale. _“We’ll give you something else to do when you return to Heaven.”_

“I’ll take care of it,” Raphael said, nodding for Khizir to be on her way. He snapped his fingers to start molecular motion, and then waived the nebula apart.

“You are not ruining my department like you’ve ruined yours,” Gabriel ordered. “Stay out of it.” 

“I don’t take orders from you,” Raphael said, hands held out to either side. He disappeared.

* * *

Aziraphale’s assignment had been asteroid belts. Boring rings of boring rocks as far as the ranking angels were concerned, but like the gas giants, they would provide valuable protection from inter-planetary debris for the life-sustaining inner planets. He had been so engrossed in optimizing placement and speed for maximum efficiency that he hadn’t noticed the gout of – something – until the star he’d been hanging asteroids around had plowed right through it. 

All Aziraphale really remembered of the impact was drawing his wings up to protect himself at the last second, his vision whiting out, and searing, unimaginable agony. 

When his vision returned, spotty and full of phantom orbs, Aziraphale was laying on one of his asteroids. The asteroid had been blown free of the star. Aziraphale hadn’t known how long he’d been blinded, only that it was long enough for the main hub of celestial activity to have receded considerably behind him. 

The pain had barely faded at all. 

Aziraphale rolled over, barely suppressing crying out. It felt like his musculature was tearing free of his back, with sharper knives scraping between his wing bones. He looked down. His white robe was covered with black ash and-- silvery frozen ichor. The only thing holding it up was ragged threads and dried ichor caking the garment to his skin.

He could do this. He could. He had to see how bad the damage was.

Aziraphale craned his neck, first to the left then to the right, which pulled at his ravaged shoulders. What he saw was a much bigger problem.

Both wings were burnt, missing the charred feathers that had smeared on his robes and the asteroid’s surface. The right wing’s elbow joint was bent at an unnatural angle. Aziraphale tried to raise it. While the humerus would move, the rest of his wing was a useless mass of feathers and flesh. Looking at it made Aziraphale feel light-headed, almost faded, so he looked away.

Flying back to the rest of the field angels was out of the question as much as getting back to Heaven. 

He was trapped. Aziraphale closed his eyes, giving himself a moment of fear and doubt, before trying to focus his thoughts enough for prayer. It took four tries – or maybe five, Aziraphale wasn’t certain -- but finally Heaven responded.

“I’ll find someone else for asteroid duty, don’t worry,” Gabriel said crisply. “We’ll give you something else to do when you return to Heaven.”

That had been that, with the stars becoming less dense with every passing minute.

Aziraphale bit his lip between his teeth. He had to fix the joint. It would take a long time for his wings to heal this far from Heaven, but if that joint didn’t spring back to a proper angle on its own...

Aziraphale had no idea what would happen. He was the first angel he knew of who’d ever broken a wing, but the outcome didn’t seem like it would be a Good Thing.

He tried twice. The third try he almost made it, the bones crunching and gliding together. He couldn’t have stopped himself from screaming even if God Herself had commanded it.

“Hey, hey, easy.” 

It was the most beautiful voice he had ever heard, and not only for being the most welcome.

Aziraphale looked up and realized he was actually in more trouble rather than less. The speaker had gold-feathered wings: an archangel.

“Sir,” Aziraphale stammered. He tried to push himself up to stand properly. He promptly dropped back to his hands and knees, the light-headed and faded feeling returning in force. His robes were too stained to be presentable anyway. 

“Heaven’s sake, just stay down.” The archangel crossed the distance and rested a hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder as if to physically prevent him from trying to stand again. (Which was entirely unnecessary, under no circumstances would Aziraphale be trying that again.) The archangel let out a long, low whistle as he stepped behind the principality. 

“I, uh.” Aziraphale’s voice strained and thin, catching oddly on his words. “There was a-- a blast of some form, and it’s well, it’s rather, ah. Well. I apologize for my appearance.”

“You’re not going to be able to fly back to Heaven like this.” 

Aziraphale hissed when the archangel’s fingers brushed his battered, though not broken, left wing. “I was told to wait, sir, until they healed.” 

“Enough with the ‘sirs.’ Raf is fine.” 

Only one of the four archangels had a name close to “Raf.” Raphael’s team was in charge of inter-stellar bodies. Aziraphale’s asteroid had clearly drifted into the extra-solar void. Raphael must have come to investigate when he’d heard Aziraphale’s scream.

“It’s hardly appropriate for me to address you so familiarly--” Aziraphale began.

“It’s hardly appropriate for a principality to be lecturing an archangel about decorum, isn’t it?” Raphael’s voice carried more than a touch of asperity, and he had Aziraphale there. “What’s your name?”

“Aziraphale, s-- Raf.” 

“Well, Aziraphale, this is going to hurt quite a bit,” Raphael warned. Aziraphale nodded, and Raphael let go of his shoulder to grab the broken right wing with both hands. This time hurt worse than the last. Aziraphale bit his lip until he tasted ichor. He screamed through a clenched jaw, and then screamed aloud as Raphael pushed on far past what Aziraphale had been able to bear doing it himself.

The joint slid into a natural angle.

Raphael was talking. How long had he been speaking?

“I’m-- sorry, s-- Rapha-- Raf. Say-- say again?” 

“Good set of pipes you’ve got there,” Raphael repeated, putting his hand back on Aziraphale’s shaking shoulder. “Bet if you sung they’d hear you half-way to the back of Heaven.”

“It’s-- it’s not-- in the principality duty roster,” Aziraphale said weakly, trying to focus on the blurred and blurring stars. Everything ached. The skin of his back had to be as burnt and shredded as his wings. 

It was going to be a long healing process. He didn’t-- he didn’t dare ask for a lift. Gabriel would be _furious_ if he was paraded into Heaven in front of everyone looking this shabby and disheveled, being carried by a ranking angel from another department. At least now Aziraphale didn’t have to worry about the possibility of never flying again.

Raphael began to sing. It was a psalm of healing and renewal, filled with creative power and energy. He began in a tenor. During the second verse, Raphael threaded in a low bass counterpart. On the third he added a brilliantly soaring baritone, each voice singing slightly after the last.

It was-- Aziraphale closed his eyes, the beauty of it exquisitely painful in a way that washed away the harrowing pain of his injuries. Warmth spread out and downward from his shoulders, winding down his spine and to the tips of his broken, battered, useless wings.

The voices began to fade. The final verse was sung by all three, then the bass, and then finally by the baritone alone.

Aziraphale’s wings didn’t hurt at all. The music felt like gentle fingers combing his feathers, smoothing everything into place, even after it faded. The combing feeling made him shiver _very_ pleasantly.

“That was…. Absolutely wonderful,” Aziraphale breathed.

“I’m not sure,” Raphael said doubtfully. The combing feeling stopped abruptly. “Never fixed wings before. You’d better test them out before you try anything with distance.”

Aziraphale twisted to look, hardly daring to believe it. His wings didn’t hurt because they were fine. Graceful white feathers and strong, hale bones. Even his robe was repaired.

“Oh, oh, thank you,” Aziraphale said, giving his wings an experimental set of flaps.

“You can thank me if they work. Up you get.”

Aziraphale stood. He circled the asteroid, then he took a longer run at a comet’s trail. That was followed by two experimental teleports. He had no sooner turned to Raphael to declare the wings functional (and thank him again) when Gabriel appeared out of the aether. Aziraphale almost crashed into a nearby planet.

“Are you finished?” Gabriel’s voice was furious. 

“We-- we were only testing them out, sir,” Aziraphale stammered. Oh, Almighty, he’d interrupted a senior angel’s work with his screaming, of course Gabriel was angry. 

“Get back to Heaven,” Gabriel said to Aziraphale even though he was glaring at Raphael, “I will deal with you later.” 

“Hey! Don’t you have a go at him because you’re angry with me.” Raphael had been hovering to watch the tests in case there was trouble. He dropped down, one golden wing blocking line of sight between Gabriel and Aziraphale.

“‘I don’t take orders from you.’” Gabriel’s voice lilted angrily, as if he was quoting someone. Aziraphale had expected Gabriel to be angry, but not like this.

“I’m certain Raf—ael,” Aziraphale corrected himself on using the shortened name as smoothly as he could, “didn’t mean to step on any jurisdictional toes.” He ducked sideways from behind his gold-feathered shield.

“I am not going to repeat myself, Aziraphale.” Gabriel’s voice was flat, and he still wasn’t looking away from Raphael.

“Go on,” Raphael said quietly, returning the stare. Aziraphale hesitated, torn between following an order given by two superiors and a desire not to abandon the one who had been so kind to him.

Obedience won out.

Later, much later, he heard that the two archangels had gotten into a row so severe that a Seraph, Lucifer, had dragged Raphael into a pocket dimension to cool down. Gabriel had arrived back in the home office in a foul mood. He had dressed Aziraphale down in front of everyone for being so easily distracted. No amount of apologies or attempts to explain that Raphael had commanded Aziraphale to test his wings had even slowed Gabriel down. 

“There’s going to be a duty rotation outside Heaven when creation is done,” Gabriel had said angrily. “You’re going to be there, on watch-and-watch, until the End Times. Do you understand me?” 

“Yes, sir,” Aziraphale had said quietly. It would be a lonely posting, that was sure, but out of sight might mean out of mind. At least until his superior calmed down.

Seeing Raphael’s name on the list of the Fallen after Lucifer’s Rebellion had been a terrible shock. Raphael had been so kind, sung so splendidly. But it it had also seemed somehow inevitable.

* * *


	2. After the End

Aziraphale’s business was entirely out of control, his Yelp score was up to three and a half stars, and it was all Crowley’s fault.

Oh, it had started off innocently enough, about a month after the false-start Apocalypse:

“Do you mind if I do some light cleaning?”

Aziraphale had been to Hell for Crowley’s sentencing. He had seen how cramped, filthy, and untidy it was. As much as Aziraphale wanted to discourage customers, the idea of Crowley being reminded of Hell in the bookshop had been unendurable. So not only had Aziraphale agreed, he’d volunteered to let Crowley add some plants while the angel went to Germany to acquire a most delightful Augustinian manuscript he simply had to have. 

“Some light cleaning” had turned out to be sweeping, scrubbing, mopping, and dusting like a Dutch goodwife. Crowley had even stripped the bookshelves to clean them. He had put the books back organized by genre and author, like his movie collection. Organized books took up less space, so Crowley had also pulled some of the books down from the upstairs rooms to fill in the empty spaces. 

By the time Aziraphale had returned, Crowley had installed wall-to-wall bookshelves in the upstairs and had condensed the remaining upstairs books into two rooms. He’d repaired the upstairs hallway lock. Then he’d then moved Aziraphale’s desk and computer into one of the rooms behind that locking door, and put a television in the same room. He had also moved Aziraphale’s closet into the farthest-back room. Crowley had revamped the entire downstairs back room into a kitchenette, condensing the other furniture into either the upstairs rooms or front-of-store shelves. 

Lastly, Crowley had moved his entire jungle plus what was most certainly _at least_ a seven-hundred-pound plant nursery shopping spree into every room.

The demon had been so utterly proud of himself that Aziraphale hadn’t had the heart to explain that to _everyone else on the planet_ “light cleaning” and “exploding like a cleanliness bomb over every surface” were two entirely different phrases.

The backroom held much more wine than it had before. Aziraphale had drunk half of it anyway.

The bookshop itself had been no help at all. Oh, when Aziraphale put books away, the bookshop reorganized itself as it willed whenever it had an opinion. But apparently when _Crowley_ did things, the romance section stayed put and the more salacious materials in every genre stopped pulling themselves forward into their own section. It was rank betrayal.

The shouting Crowley insisted was integral to plant care had also taken some getting used to. His plants were the most verdant Aziraphale had seen since Eden, though, so what did the angel know?

Even without changing his hours, business had ticked up sharply from practically non-existent to virtually non-existent. It should have been a warning.

After the _fifth_ first edition Aziraphale had been unable to dissuade a customer from purchasing, Aziraphale had complained at some length and vocabulary.

Crowley had moved Aziraphale’s most prized books upstairs and pulled the rest downstairs. The table and thrones from Crowley’s flat had migrated into one of the upstairs rooms. The demon had placed a sign that read “not for sale” on the stairs. Crowley called it a “reading room,” even though it was technically two rooms.

Giving researchers a place to read and take notes without actually _purchasing_ Aziraphale’s books had put a dent in purchase requests, the angel had to admit. Most of the academics brought delicious treats or good wine with, and the conversation was interesting. 

The bookshop’s Yelp score had gone up from half a star to one and a half stars. Another opportunity to reverse course that Aziraphale had passed by.

After the _eleventh_ book Aziraphale had been unable to talk his way out of parting with, Crowley had floated the idea of buying duplicates and books Aziraphale didn’t actually care about to put on the shelves. Bones to throw the wolves.

The idea had some merit, and it wasn’t as if creating money out of thin air was terribly difficult.

Somewhere about that time, Crowley had put a bed in the upstairs farthest-back room to nap in. Aziraphale didn’t see the appeal of sleep the same way Crowley did. However, the bed had proved to have other uses Aziraphale enjoyed a great deal. A couch had appeared in the office.

Selling the duplicates had been the beginning of the end. “Hours by appointment” had become “Aziraphale’s phone ringing regularly with appointment bookings.” Crowley had brought his answering machine over to stem the tide. No matter how Aziraphale adjusted his hours, Google Business aggregated his customers’ cellphone data and helpfully posted the new busy times for people to pop in.

Explaining where he was getting the money to pay for the duplicates in his meticulously kept books and equally-meticulous tax records started to become a problem.

“I’ll lease out my flat,” Crowley had suggested helpfully. “I’m here most of the time, anyway. All that’s left is some art and statutes.”

Bringing in the art and statutes had been the final nail in the coffin of the bookshop’s existence as a front for Aziraphale’s collection. Three and a half stars. _Three and a half stars,_ and he spent the actual flat money as well the miracled money attributed to the flat on inventory. People were beginning to commission the angel to find books they couldn’t locate on their own. 

He was good at it. That was the worst.

Aziraphale was actually going to have to set aside money to pay taxes this year. He’d had to open a bank account. A _bank account_. In a bank. With a teller. There were people in his shop at _least_ once a day, and he was receiving acknowledgements in academic papers for his “reading room.” Each acknowledgment spawned more phone calls, more people, more--

And it was _entirely_ Crowley’s fault.

Aziraphale had been quite clear on that point.

The utterly delicious duck and the equally expensive wine Crowley had purchased to mark seven months since the Apocalypse-that-wasn’t did not change it. The prinsesstarta for dessert didn’t change it. Leaning back on the office couch, Aziraphale’s back pressed to Crowley’s chest with the demon’s chin resting on the crown of his head didn’t change it. Crowley’s his crow-black wings curled around them both like a blanket didn’t change it. 

“I’m an angel,” Aziraphale finished anxiously. “I’m not supposed to be running a bookshop with my lover. You tempted me to greed _and_ lust.”

“Didn’t have to tempt very hard,” Crowley said. “You’re happy, angel.”

Aziraphale tightened his fingers around Crowley’s. Framing it as a complaint was safer than gratitude. Still, if Crowley wanted an honest admission, Aziraphale wasn’t certain he could refuse over a-- a petty superstition, really.

“I am happy, may I be forgiven,” Aziraphale said as softly as he could and still be intelligible.

Crowley stiffened in alarm beneath Aziraphale.

“What?” Aziraphale asked, even though he had enough of an idea of what it was that his hands tingled and his chest ached. He never should have said anything. Could he pretend he didn’t mean it, that he had been lying for Crowley’s benefit? Too late, most likely, and who would believe him?

“Don’t know,” Crowley said tightly. “It’s like a black hole, only worse.”

Aziraphale couldn’t feel anything, but that was meaningless. If he’d learned one thing from the failed Apocalypse, it was that he and Crowley could most assuredly not sense the same things. 

Crowley’s arms tightened around Aziraphale. His wings locked tightly. The shop was gone. Crowley had pulled them into the desert out of time, but it was different. It shimmered like a fading mirage everywhere Aziraphale looked. Aziraphale didn’t have to see Crowley’s face to know the demon’s eyes were lid-to-lid yellow. 

When they dropped back into time, they fell a foot and change to the ground. The couch was gone. The television, desk, and computer were gone. The walls had different paint. There were racks of clothing everywhere. But the room was the same shape and the view from the window was the same, they were definitely in the same building.

Sirens began screaming.

A security system. A security system Aziraphale had refused to buy, opting for a bank account and accepting non-cash transactions instead.

Crowley was pale and sluggish, stumbling as Aziraphale draped the demon’s arm over his shoulders and hauled him to his feet. He wrapped his other arm wrapped around Crowley’s waist as he half-dragged them both downstairs. His bookshop had become a charity shop in a matter of seconds. 

A snap of his fingers unlocked the door. Aziraphale pulled them both outside. He could hear the police cars. They couldn’t get arrested. Not with Crowley’s eyes.

Aziraphale teleported them both to Berkley Square. He scared half a years’s growth out of a transient. 

“Don’t worry, angel,” Crowley slurred. “Be fine in a minute.”

“What happened?” Aziraphale demanded, but Crowley was already unconscious. Neither angels nor demons, as a general rule, passed out. Shielding them had taken every reserve of power the demon had, including what he used to animate his corporation.

Aziraphale laid Crowley on a bench. The angel sat wretchedly on the edge. The park would be patrolled by police to chase homeless people away from sleeping on the benches. Aziraphale would have to alter their memories as they came. Aziraphale pushed the wine from his system, letting it bleed onto the ground. The bottles that had once held it were gone.

The angel rested his forehead in his hands and closed his eyes. He was such a fool. From his lips to Heaven’s ears.

* * *


	3. 537 AD

Azazel watched Arthur’s champion cross the field. He walked like his armor weighed no more than clothes. That meant angel, not human.

How delightful.

Meeting his replacement adversary was so much more interesting than cutting down some Welshman stupid enough to challenge an undefeated enemy in lieu of military engagement. 

Azazel had flipped the last three heavenly agents. Making it four-for-four would be quite the feather in the wing.

“You know you’re wasting your time, my dear,” Azazel said gently. No one expected civility from a demon. The shock worked wonders for getting one’s foot in the door. “You save a soul and foment peace, I damn a soul and foment war. We’re just cancelling each other out.”

“Fine. How about we don’t, say we did, and knock off early?”

Azazel flipped up his visor. He remembered that voice. “Raphael? Is that you under there?”

The white knight flipped up his visor as well, fixing the demon with unamused purple eyes.

“Are you still an archangel?” Azazel asked, not believing what his own eyes were showing him. A demotion – could Heaven even demote people? -- was the only reason he could think of for the _archangel of healing and the cosmos_ being billeted to babysitting humanity.

“What kind of a stupid question is that?,” Raphael demanded. “‘Still an archangel.’ What else am I going to be, an aardvark?” 

“Don’t you have a department to run, then?” the demon asked. There were four archangels. Heaven couldn’t simply whip up a fifth to free up Raphael. Could they? That would be a big problem for Hell if they could.

“I do,” Raphael stated impatiently. “But you keep turning principalities into demons, so Heaven decided to send someone you can’t just zap into compliance. Can we just- move this right along?”

Azazel could feel his mouth working, but no sound was coming out. 

“It’s not mind control,” finally emerged.

“Oh. Oh. Oh, of course,” Raphael said with an utterly un-angelic amount of sarcasm. “It’s not mind control. If you say so. Let me just pop back to Heaven and send down another angel for you to work your sorcery on.”

“I’m not lying!”

“You’re a demon. It’s what you do,” Raphael stated. “Now are we going to get on with this, hellfire, or do we both just kick off home?”

“I’m not just kicking off home. It’s out of the question,” Azazel protested, even though he wasn’t going to win in a fight against an archangel without having had an opportunity prior to stack the deck in his favor. Flipping him was also not looking like a likely outcome (see the previous statement regarding the importance of advance preparation).

“You said yourself we’re cancelling each other out,” Raphael carried on. “We tell our bosses we stalemated out, I go back to my department’s quarterlies, and you go back to…. Whatever it is you do.”

“I am not having this conversation,” Azazel announced, turning around and walking away.

“Fine.” Raphael sighed as he flipped his visor down. “Long way it is.”

“Fine,” Azazel repeated, still walking away.

* * *


	4. After the End

Crowley was dormant for three days, one of which involved snow. Aziraphale tried an experimental teleport to Crowley’s apartment, but like the shop, it had changed. The nice young lady and her children had been quite shocked. Aziraphale had taken them back to the park. It wasn’t as if either of them could die of exposure.

At night, Aziraphale watched the transients create fires for themselves in the absence of police presence. He quietly healed any frostbite or chronic diseases. During the day, he watched the respectable denizens of the city bustle by, wishing each other the joys of the season with one breath and missing its point with the next. Aziraphale sent away the police at all hours, something his fellow transients reaped the benefit of as much as he did. 

Crowley swore, rolled over, and fell off the bench. He made a sound that could only be described as, “blrrgh.” Aziraphale grabbed the demon’s arms and urged him up into a sitting position on the bench. 

“How long was I out?” Crowley asked.

“Three days,” Aziraphale said. “I’m so sorry. This is entirely my fault. I knew better.” 

“That wasn’t just a miracle erasing the shop,” Crowley said, leaning back and closing his eyes. He didn’t even try to deny that destroying everything Aziraphale cherished the minute Aziraphale declared himself happy wasn’t something Uriel and Sandalphon would do. “That was--” Crowley shook his head. “Heaven doesn’t have that kind of juice.”

“God does,” Aziraphale countered.

“If God wanted to punish you, it’d be black wings and a sharp trip downstairs.” 

Aziraphale couldn’t hide his anxious expression. Crowley wasn’t wrong. He had said before the Event that it had felt like a black hole, not spellwork. 

“You said you felt something like a black hole only more severe. Why?” Aziraphale doubted this was a natural occurrence, but he supposed it was possible. Aziraphale didn’t know much about celestial phenomena at all. 

“You know those… those things humans use to lift bits of building with? The big machines with the long arms?”

“Geese?” Aziraphale guessed. No, that wasn’t right. It was a bird name, though, that much he was certain of.

“Well, those things. They’ve got a... big weight on the other side from the load for balance and such. Black holes have a, well, singularity, not that you’d know what that is, but this thing inside them does the same job for everything else: matter, dark matter. Not exactly, but – close enough. Anyway, the thing at the center, around it the usual laws of physics don’t apply. Closer you get to it, more that’s true. Get too close and--” Crowley shook his head. “I’ve been clipped pretty close before. It felt the same. Just. More of it.”

Aziraphale watched the human children throwing snowballs in the square while he parsed that. He pushed aside his annoyance that Crowley was clearly dumbing down his explanation. He’d said to himself the hard sciences weren’t his area, and he could hardly be expected to know everything any more than Crowley could be expected to know nothing just because he wouldn’t pick up a book if his life depended on it.

Right. Focus.

“So it felt like the regular laws of physics were ceasing to apply,” Aziraphale mused aloud. The Event had felt like the socket-pedestals of reality themselves. They really only knew one person besides God who could manipulate reality itself.

“I thought Adam lost his powers when he substituted Mr. Young for Satan?” Aziraphale voiced his theory aloud.

“So did I.” Crowley was quiet. “If we’re going to move, I’m going to need glasses.” He held out his hand.

“They were destroyed along with the rest of the shop, I’m sorry.”

“Then miracle me up a new pair.”

It was worrisome that Crowley couldn’t even manage such a minor sorcery after three days. Still, Aziraphale did as requested, whipping up the lovely pair the demon had worn in the 1850s.

“Angel,” Crowley reproached, even as he slid them on.

“They’re vintage,” Aziraphale said primly. “Vintage is ‘in.’” Crowley made a low, growling sound. He pushed himself up off the bench.

It was likely that the Bentley had been purged along with everything else. Even if the Bentley hadn’t been destroyed, if Crowley couldn’t magic up glasses he certainly couldn’t magic up driving. Aziraphale didn’t know how to drive with or without magic. Aziraphale settled for hailing a cab by standing on the curb and waiting with the other Christmas season foot traffic. The driver balked at the hour and a half drive to Tadfield. Aziraphale pulled a couple of hundred-pound notes out of the aether to change his opinion vis-à-vis lost income. 

“Cranes,” Crowley said just as they exited the London city limits.

“Oh, good lord,” Aziraphale sighed.

They had just turned off the main road to Tadfield when Crowley shot upright. A 1926 black Bentley had cut in in front of them. 

Not just a Bentley – _the_ Bentley. It didn’t even have lights on in the darkness.

“My car! Who--” Crowley rapped sharply on the glass separating them from the driver. “He stole my car! Follow him!”

“Hey, this is not a police car--” the cab driver protested.

Aziraphale passed forward another bill through the slider.

“--but they do citizen’s arrests here, as far as I know.”

Aziraphale’s lips thinned at the lack of civic-mindedness, but the driver was tailing the Bentley as instructed. When the Bentley began to drive at speeds more akin to what Crowley usually drove at, no amount of money would persuade the cab driver to match pace on the narrow, potentially icy, road. Crowley placed his hand on the ceiling, clearly trying to magic the car into driving faster. Nothing happened.

“Angel!”

Aziraphale drew his hand down, snapping his fingers. The Bentley’s front left tire blew.

“Not that!”

The Bentley careened across the roadway, the smoke from the destroyed tire blending in with the roostertails of snow. The cab driver slammed on his brakes. Aziraphale concentrated on keeping the cab from skidding into a tree and killing (or discorporating, as the case may be) everyone. The cab finally slid to a halt with an ungodly grinding sound. In the headlights, Aziraphale could see that the Bentley had also managed to stop without hitting anything. The cab driver was swearing as profusely as Crowley. 

The minute the cab stopped, Crowley jumped out, promising every possible damnation to Aziraphale if there was so much as a scratch on the paint. Aziraphale opened the other door.

“Are you insane?” he heard Crowley demand, his voice different, only to be quickly followed by, “eeiggshit.”

The second Aziraphale closed the door, the cab pulled out onto the road sharply enough to spray Aziraphale with dirt and snow. Crowley’s door slammed shut from the acceleration.

With the cab gone, the woods were black as pitch.

“Let there be light.” The snap of Aziraphale’s fingers echoed oddly, and the woods began to glow.

It was glowing from twin spheres of light.

The car thief looked like Crowley in face and body. But he wore no dark glasses, his eyes weren’t yellow, and his long red hair was tied neatly back. The clothes were different, too, a sleek navy-blue three-piece with no tie and his shirt open at the throat. A compromise between Crowley’s desire for casual fashionableness and – Heaven’s dress code. 

Crowley – black clothes and black glasses – was standing on the side of the road gaping. He wasn’t even making his chest look like he was breathing.

“Hellfire, your books say anything about this?” the false Crowley asked. The real Crowley’s voice had a coarseness to the consonants, almost a smoker’s voice. This version’s consonants were smooth and rich. An archangel’s voice was a weapon, but not many would think about Heaven crippling it in a demon before eviction. This level of attention to detail in facsimile was worrisome.

When “hellfire” stepped from around the Bentley, it was Aziraphale’s turn for mute staring. It was a false version of himself, in a suit nearly identical to the one he himself was wearing. Nearly identical – except it was coal black, like his false self’s eyes.

* * *


	5. 1601 AD

Raphael was a conundrum.

Most angels had very little in the way of critical thinking skills. “Heaven is Good, Hell is Bad” was about as far as they went and all they assumed anyone needed to know. Once you got their little minds working on any sort of actual problem – dead children during the Flood, Jesus on the stake – they ran themselves in mental circles until their wings turned black. 

Poyel, the third adversary, had practically Felled himself. He’d been absolutely useless with humans in general and Romans in particular. After their fourth competing assignment had chosen Azazel’s temptations of the flesh over Poyel’s heavy-handed urgings toward temperance, Azazel had suggested the angel try wine to understand the appeal. That had ended with an angry, inebriated angel grabbing Azazel’s wrist and demanding to be shown “what was so good about the other thing.” Azazel had explained he generally urged humans toward each other, not toward himself, and tried to pull his arm away. Poyel had tightened his grip painfully. Poyel hadn’t been willing to risk polluting a human soul with lust or risk creating a nephil by coupling with a human. 

But, as he’d explained at no small length, a demon couldn’t even _have_ virtue to protect and Azazel was going to die at Armageddon no matter what he did in the meantime. Poyel had also voiced his opinion of Azazel’s intellect (low) and how pleasurable Azazel would find the act (very).

Azazel had intended compliance as a stepping-stone to making Poyel question absolutes. He certainly hadn’t expected holy fire to appear from nowhere, burning Poyel’s halo and blackening his wings. The Almighty hadn’t merely refused to wait for Heavenly jurisprudence, God hadn’t even waited for Poyel to insert himself into Azazel’s body. If Azazel had taken more pleasure from Poyel’s screaming than he had in the “temptation” itself, that was simply to be expected. Azazel _was_ a demon, after all.

A demon who had never questioned a single Heavenly order, not even once, only to be grabbed by the Almighty and thrown down without so much as a word after Michael had finished banishing the rebels. If Azazel knew so well how to break angels it was only because he knew better than anyone how unjust and unfair Heaven was (not that anyone, in Heaven or Hell, had ever believed he’d been punished without cause). 

Azazel had never understood why he had Fallen, so it made sense that he couldn’t figure out why Raphael hadn’t. The way Raphael ran his mouth alone should have gotten him chucked out by his ear. There was also his utter willingness to bend any rule that didn’t accomplish his goals: be it a small rule like neutral-colored clothing, or a large rule like not making arrangements with your adversary to get more work done. 

Or going wing-to-wing with Gabriel for healing an angel who had been expressly ordered to wait alone on a godforsaken rock, an angel who wasn’t even his responsibility. 

Azazel _remembered_, and that was another part of the conundrum. Raphael was the only angel Azazel had ever met with a half-ounce of-- of-- Not kindness or niceness, exactly. Angels dispensed beatitudes for a living, and Raphael wasn’t much for petty courtesies.

Abhorrence for suffering, that was it. Raphael had taken the entire Inquisition matter quite hard, and probably would have turned himself off for the entire thing if he’d had the option. But as an archangel with a department of angels coming to him at all hours with problems and petty desires for approval, Raphael had been able to do no more than turn himself off for a few hours a day, like a human. The sharp way he’d questioned Heaven letting it all happen because stopping it wasn’t part of the Great Plan _should_ have been a one-way ticket downstairs. You couldn’t get into a fight with Gabriel every time you spoke to him and stay an angel. It made no sense.

“I thought you said we’d be inconspicuous here,” the subject of the demon’s frustrations said, walking up behind Azazel and slightly to the side. The last decade or so, Raphael had started keeping office hours for his supervisory duties that were separate from the miracle hours of his Earthside position. It had helped stem the ever-present tide of subordinates popping in and out, but it hadn’t halted it entirely. Their arrangement took careful planning and a not-insignificant amount of luck to keep from being discovered.

The meagre crowd for Hamlet was a problem for more than just William Shakespeare.

“Well, that was the idea,” Azazel replied. He popped one of the hazelnuts he’d purchased earlier into his mouth. The hawker made a sales pitch to Raphael that the angel waved off. 

Azazel gave the angel a sideways glance. The fashion for human men had swung back to allowing long hair, and Raphael had predictably taken the opportunity to grow his out. His doublet and hose were varying shades of green. He looked lovely next to Azazel’s dress-code black, and the outfit made Raphael’s hair look like holy fire. That was, of course, why he’d selected it. 

Vanity, another reason to Fall which didn’t seem to work on Raphael. Not that Azazel was complaining. If Raphael wanted to be looked at, the demon was happy to oblige.

“This isn’t one of Shakespeare’s gloomy ones, is it?” Raphael asked. “No wonder no one’s here.”

Master Burbage had apparently also noticed the audience consisted of five people, one of which was the playwright, and that only Shakespeare and Azazel were paying any sort of attention.

“I am wasting my time up here,” he declared, breaking character. 

“No, no, you’re very good,” Azazel consoled. Part of the praise was sincere. Burbage had been a headliner since his twenties for a reason. Part was because the play couldn’t go on if the lead was having a fit. Azazel loved Hamlet. Posing as a dead father to a grieving son and fingering the uncle for murder: it was inspired as a temptation to wrath. Shakespeare was as looking at a promising future in Hell after he died.

“And what does your friend think?” Burbage demanded. Shakespeare turned to see who Burbage was talking about. 

“He didn’t realize this wasn’t a comedy, pay him no mind,” Azazel said to Burbage, but he made eye contact with Shakespeare. Dear William could do as he liked with Earl Pembroke, but Raphael was off limits.

Not that Azazel had any _objection_ to Raphael Falling to lust, of course not, it just-- well he couldn’t let some mortal take that kind of achievement out of his hands. Yes, quite.

“Yes, Burbage,” Shakespeare said, turning back around. “Please. From the top.”

Burbage went back to his soliloquy as instructed.

“He’s very good, isn’t he?” Azazel asked Raphael. 

“Age does not wither, nor custom stale his infinite variety,” Raphael agreed.

“This is my last chance to see this. I have to be in Edinburg by the end of the week,” Azazel remarked. “I have to ride a horse. Can’t tempt a clan leader into horse rustling without one.”

Raphael made a wordless sound of displeasure. “Not a fan of horses myself. Impossible to stay on, serious design flaw if you ask me.” His eyes slid toward Azazel. “I also have to be in Edinburg: minor miracle and a couple of blessings.”

“The flaw isn’t in the horse, it’s in your riding skills. You should ride behind someone else – you hold on to him, and he does a proper job of holding on to the horse. Pity you can’t ride behind me, my dear. They’re giving me a magnificent destrier: sable coat, flowing mane, sparks thrown from his horseshoes. Very dramatic.” Azazel spared another sideways glance at Raphael, then purred, “I’m certain a sturdy black stallion between your legs would be just the thing to change your mind.”

Raphael made a series of sounds which Azazel had come to understand was the archangel’s mouth beginning operations before his brain formed the actual words. Color rode high on his sharp cheekbones.

“My dear boy, I meant riding pillion would change your opinion about horses. Though I’m flattered you think of me as a stallion.” Azazel feigned innocence. That was always good for winding Raphael up like a cheap but endlessly amusing toy.

“Hellfire, I didn’t read anything into that sentence you didn’t fully intend and you know it.”

“I know no such thing. Reading your utterly un-holy licentiousness into my turn of phrase just because I’m a demon is hardly something I can be held accountable for.” Azazel held a hand to his chest as if the burden of unjust accusal was too heavy to be borne. Color was suffusing Raphael’s entire face now.

“I can hold you accountable for whatever I damn well please,” Raphael said crossly.

“Because you are an archangel and I am Fallen?” Azazel asked as Hamlet fretted on. There was more steel in the demon’s voice than he intended, hints of old bitterness seeping through Azazel’s control. Raphael didn’t know that, though, and relented.

“You know I didn’t mean it like that, hellfire.”

“No, you didn’t,” Azazel said, forcing his voice to be airy and gentle because he actually didn’t want Raphael to start asking any questions which could lead to having to discuss Poyel. “I was only needling you, my dear. You do blush so prettily.” The compliment made Raphael drop his eyes and look away. “I assume given that it is quarter’s end, you want to toss for one of us doing both at Edinburg?”

“It’s a waste of effort for both of us to take the trip just for a zero sum.”

“You know, dear boy, I’ve noticed that when you do the tempting there’s always some sort of domino effect afterward: exposing a corrupt official, a work position opening up for a widow, expensive herbs just happening to find their way to some hedge witch.” Azazel looked at Raphael steadily. “Isn’t that strange?”

“Angel,” Raphael said, gesturing down his body. Azazel followed the gesture with his eyes. 

“Mmm,” Azazel said. “And you wouldn’t be using doing my temptings for me as a cover for some off-the-books good works Heaven doesn’t approve of?”

“Of course not.” Raphael still wasn’t meeting Azazel’s eyes. If Raphael Fell, he’d learn to be a more shameless liar.

“My dear, it’s subverting Heaven. I’m not going to be upset,” Azazel said aloud. Recommending Falling to improve Raphael’s mendacity would wind him up, but not in the fun way. It would be in the way that led to Raphael avoiding him for fifty years. The demon pulled out a coin.

“Heads.” Raphael called the coin even before Azazel flipped it. Heads.

“I guess I’m going to Edinburg,” Azazel sighed. There was no way Hamlet would still be showing by the time he got back.

“This play is a complete dud,” Shakespeare was complaining to an individual Azazel didn’t recognize. “It’d take a miracle to get anyone to come and see it.”

Unless--

Azazel looked at Raphael beseechingly. Raphael was remarkably circumspect with frivolous miracles, something about setting a good example for his staff. Surely he had a “freebie” or two-- Azazel had range but not Edinburg-to-London range, and Raphael would be in London reviewing his quarterlies--

“Yes, alright, I’ll do that one. My treat,” Raphael capitulated. “I still prefer the funny ones.”

* * *


	6. Wednesday, Before the Amended End

Looking at the fake Raphael and the nightmare-which-could-have-been Aziraphale made it feel like the inside of Crowley’s corporation had been replaced with shattered glass. The tempered little pieces were grinding against each other and slicing him to ribbons. 

He knew Heaven would never forgive him. Lucifer had seemed to understand Crowley’s frustration with how Gabriel ran Heaven – how cold, how stark everything was. How disposable Gabriel considered the lower choirs. (Not that he’d ever admit to Aziraphale even under pain of torture that that had been one of his questions.) But Lucifer had thought the solution was to oust God and put himself in God’s place. Crowley hadn’t fought for Lucifer’s ego, but the taint of questions and questionable association had been enough to damn him.

Not raising his staff against Heaven had condemned him in Hell to being the lowest-ranked of the damned. Crowley didn’t have the cruelty it took to climb the corporate ladder in Hell, as the humans would say, so there he’d stayed. 

He’d never fit anywhere he’d been except with Aziraphale.

Crowley never would have forgiven himself if he’d been wrong about the Ineffable Plan, if he had saved the world at the price of damning his angel. 

He tried to say Aziraphale’s name. It stuck in his throat, Unspeakable. An illusion couldn’t be Unspeakable. But at the same time, the monster in front of him couldn’t be Aziraphale because Aziraphale was next to him, his holy light glowing in the air above them all. 

“Creating reversed illusions isn’t one of our signs of the Apocalypse, no,” the Fallen whatever-it-was said. “Technically the Antichrist has the power to create doubles, but I don’t see why he would. We don’t even know who he is.” 

“What do you mean?” Aziraphale demanded. “Whatever you are, the Apocalypse is over. Well, averted anyway.”

The false Raphael paled. He reached his hand out to brace himself on the car.

“Well. It isn’t as if we hadn’t considered the possibility,” the fake Aziraphale said softly, lowering his eyes briefly. “I’m uncertain as to why I would be redeemed while you Fall.” 

“We’re-- we’re--” It took three tries for Crowley to get his voice to have any volume. “We’re not from the future.” Aziraphale’s bookshop had been operational for two hundred years. Going back seven months wouldn’t make it a charity shop, and there wouldn’t be snow on the ground. Were they in the future? Armageddon 2.0, with some strange reversal of fortunes between now and then? “It’s December 19, 2019 for us.”

How could a demon be forgiven? 

There were so many ways Aziraphale could Fall. 

“Same date,” the fake Aziraphale said. He looked at the fake Raphael for an explanation. The false Aziraphale apparently shared the real Aziraphale’s distaste for both podcasts and science in general. Adam creating an illusion was looking less likely. Adam just didn’t know Aziraphale well enough for that level of verisimilitude. 

The false Raphael flapped his lips, shaking his head. “Calabi-Yau dimensions aren’t permeable. It would take all four archangels in the presence of the galactic core to send one angel or demon back in time. Even if they did, somehow, pull off two, the main timeline and everyone in it would have been erased, not sitting here gaping at us.” The fake Raphael – though it was looking like he was Raphael as genuinely as Crowley wasn’t – grimaced. “You said the Antichrist could bend reality. He must have-- mucked with time somehow. Changed the rules, or-- something.”

“That was our theory as well,” Aziraphale said politely. “We were headed to see him when, well, we had thought you’d stolen Crowley’s car.”

Raphael turned his head to stare at Crowley. Crowley waved back lamely. The initial shock was fading into surreality. Was this what humans felt when they took drugs? Why in Satan’s name did they do it twice? 

“Raphael J. Crowley is what I put my flat lease under.”

“Anthony J. Crowley, same. J just a J?” When Raphael nodded, Crowley announced he needed to sit down and helped himself to the back seat of the Bentley. His head was spinning, and not just from being low on power.

“So you’re Crawly, then?” Aziraphale asked his Fallen counterpart.

“Why in Satan’s name--? _Azazel._” It was as bad as A. Z. Fell. God-- Satan-- Somebody, the angel really never changed.

“Oh. Well, ah, nice to meet you then, Azazel.” Aziraphale’s courtesy was unflappable. Crowley felt the Bentley shift as Aziraphale repaired the tire he’d blown. “I don’t suppose you’d mind giving us a lift?”

“To the Antichrist?” Azazel’s voice lilted in ways Aziraphale’s didn’t. “No, not at all, just point the way. We can solve this problem and Armageddon with one broken neck.” 

“You can’t just up and kill him! Hell’s sake, did you take demon lessons from Hastur?” Crowley snapped, not that Azazel would be able to understand more than the gist. Raphael and Aziraphale had started talking at the exact same time Crowley had. 

“I expected that from them,” Azazel replied when the 2.1 stereo of complaint had stilled, looking down through the car window at Crowley. “But you are aware that you are a demon, yes?”

“You are aware you are extremely annoying, yes?” Crowley grimaced internally. It wasn’t his best. 

Azazel raised an eyebrow just like Aziraphale did when he was disappointed. 

“Adam has been raised completely human,” Aziraphale pleaded in that way that usually convinced Crowley to do whatever he wanted. They’d see if it worked on any demon. “He will stop Armageddon as soon as he sees what it will do to his friends, and whatever he’s done to cause this wasn’t intentional. He’ll fix it when we ask. I give you my word.”

“It’s at least worth a try, hellfire,” Raphael chimed in.

“Fine,” Azazel sighed. “We will give it a go. But if he doesn’t snap to, I’m killing him and the rest of you are staying out of my way.” Azazel dropped into the passenger seat. 

“You’re not getting into my car covered in that,” Raphael said. He snapped his fingers and the mud and snow disappeared from Aziraphale’s clothes. The angels clicked off their holy lights and joined the demons in the Bentley. Crowley leaned back in the seat. He could feel a vague prickle of hellfire in his gut, but still not enough to be worth a damn.

Worst six-month anniversary of all time.

* * *


	7. 1793 AD

Jean-Claude was regaling the dining hall with how he’d helped catch the Scarlet Pimpernel in the act of smuggling aristocrat children in wine barrels. Azazel came for the food, not the company, so he mostly ignored the sans-culottes and their kind. It wasn’t as if he spoke much French. The chatter wasn’t a particularly pleasant background music, but the crepes were truly excellent. Colette did amazing things with the batter. The texture was always flawless. 

“--cheveux roux.”

Azazel didn’t speak much French, but he did know “red hair.” He could hear various forms of “appeler.” If they were saying the Scarlet Pimpernel was named for the color of his hair-- 

Kids in peril, red hair, and the Pimpernel was said to be smarter and stronger than the average human. The demon had a fairly good idea of what he was going to find in the Bastille. Azazel wiped his mouth and left his crepes on the table. Azazel’s plain, dark clothing and short, unpowdered hair looked the part of a revolutionary. Combined with his powers of suggestion, getting into the Bastille was no trouble at all.

The stink of urine, feces, rotting straw, and blood was galling as Azazel walked down the winding stairs past the cell blocks. Aristocrats cried out for mercy. Azazel paid them as much mind as they had paid the poor. He didn’t agree with the Directoire methods, per se. Women and children didn’t have any substantiative say in political decisions, even if they did benefit from them, so wiping out entire families root and stem was a little much. Heaven and the First Estate were similar enough in _modus operandi_, however, that Azazel understood the revolutionary _sentiment_ quite well.

Raphael was pacing in his cell, his long fingers worrying the links of the chain that bound him to the wall. He was dressed as a peasant. His trousers had old stains from wine spatter, but his jacket didn’t have stains from spills – a wine merchant, not a drunk. Raphael’s hair was cropped painfully short to make it easier to wear wigs for his various disguises. His attention to detail was magnificent, so it must have been the actions of the children – an ill-timed cry, a sniffle – that tipped Jean-Claude off. There was a guard on either side of the door. Raphael’s was the only occupied cell on the floor, doubtless to ensure any allies who may have deliberately gotten themselves captured could not get close enough to assist in a rescue.

“Give me a minute with the prisoner, lads,” Azazel said. Suggestion didn’t require a language in common, so he didn’t bother with French. There was a faint smell of sulphur in the air as the guards stiffened, then began walking up the stairs to the next level.

“So I have you to thank for this… slaughterhouse,” Raphael accused, turning to face the demon. He didn’t magic the chains away with the guards out of sight, which silently confirmed Azazel’s other theory. 

“No, humanity came up with this themselves. But I have white in my ledger from _someone_ racking up a fat score of ‘accidental’ good in my name, so I’m taking the commendation and thanking Hell for it. You, on the other hand, haven’t used a single miracle for this entire production.” Azazel knew the answer, but with an archangel utterly at his mercy no one could blame him for making Raphael admit it aloud. If they could, Azazel didn’t care.

“I am supposed to be using my position to guide humanity into siding with Heaven, not policing their petty squabbles.” Raphael’s voice was bitter and his long fingers were still worrying the chain. “So yes, whether I free myself with a miracle or get discorporated in the morning, the end result is the same: a long drop and a sudden stop. Happy?”

Azazel knew he should be. The archangel Raphael Fallen, hadn’t that been the goal he’d set himself during that first meeting? As a demon, as a representative of Hell, he should absolutely let Raphael’s recklessness do his job for him.

Raphael didn’t have the cruelty it took to get any sort of rank in Hell. As a demon, Raphael would be able to do as he liked, when he liked, without the responsibility of his department hanging over him all the time. And throwing Raphael down for rescuing children was wrong. Anyone but Heaven could see that. Wouldn’t it be better for Raphael to see Heaven for what it was? 

But--

The thing was--

With Raphael Falling being less abstract and more concrete--

There was simply no way to pretend--

Raphael would never be happy in Hell. In his precious free time he was always going to this concert or that garden party, wherever the people were. Whatever was the “in” thing. He chatted with old ladies at the park, pretty young men who didn’t realize Raphael wasn’t human, his precious subordinates, even his adversary. Raphael’s smiles were soft and warm and frequent, crow’s feet crinkling at the corners of his eyes. 

Hell was cold, hellfire or no. Raphael would learn to ration his smiles in Hell. He would learn to be circumspect with his affection and to pretend to a cruelty he didn’t have to save his own skin. Azazel had. He wouldn’t even have to watch Raphael be unhappy, because Raphael would be in Hell and Azazel would still be up here.

Azazel snapped his fingers, the door lock springing open.

“If anyone asks, you somehow pulled this off on your own.” Azazel used his prim, condescending voice. He could not be seen being-- emotional, over an angel. It was bad enough he was rescuing one, directly betraying Hell’s best interests. 

“Won’t you get in trouble for this?”

“Did I not specify that, if asked, you are to concoct some sort of dashing, heroic story for how you managed on your own?” Azazel demanded, entering the cell. Another snap of his fingers and the chains fell away from Raphael’s wrists.

“Dashing, heroic stories aren’t really my area, hellfire,” Raphael said, rubbing his wrists. “But I’m sure the Pimpernel will fill one in and take the credit.”

That brought Azazel up short.

“So there is an actual human--?”

“-- I don’t know why you are surprised. I do what I do under your name all the time,” Raphael stated. “And it benefits him as well to have _a_ Pimpernel operating when he’s been seen by multiple witnesses in England.”

Son of Satan. “And when Heaven asked, you just-- pointed them at this English fellow.”

“And no angel, much less an archangel, would ever work _for_ a, a– what did Poyel call them?”

“‘Hairless apes,’” Azazel supplied.

“That’s it,” Raphael said. “No angel, much less an archangel, would ever work for a ‘hairless ape,’ so the agent he has carrying out the other rescues must be human. It’s very clever, if I do say so myself.” 

It was very clever. Somewhere in the last hundred years Raphael had put diligent effort into his mendacity.

“And the Pimpernel, of course,” Azazel theorized, “thinks you’re just a like-minded British patriot. Even if they go looking in his head, there’s nothing to see but a human in glasses and a different hair color.”

“And a different gender,” Raphael said, in a low voice with a conspiratorial smile. “Human gender is more performative than structural, it’s not too difficult flip over without miracling your corporation. Not that Heaven has any reason or way to know that.”

Son of _Satan_. Raphael wasn’t just defying Heaven, he was covering his tracks and then covering covering his tracks-- It was a lie worthy of the Father of the Lie himself.

“How are you not Fallen already?” He realized only after the words left his mouth that Raphael was not like to take it as a compliment.

“Because Gabriel doesn’t know and the Almighty doesn’t mind,” Raphael said, flushing from Azazel’s approval. “Now, while we’re here, I need to ask you for a favor.”

Azazel was brought up short for the second time. “A favor. In the middle of a rescue. Without so much as a word of thanks, I might add--”

“--Thank you.” Raphael hastily parroted the petty courtesy. Azazel realized what favor the archangel would need to ask for “while they were here” in the Bastille.

“No! No, no, no, no. Out of the question. Do you know what Hell would do to me for rescuing twenty human children from execution? How could I _possibly_ justify that?”

“It’s closer to seventy-four in the Bastille, depending on where you stand on the sixteen-versus-eighteen majority question--” Raphael corrected.

“And that makes it _better_?” Azazel was trying to speak softly and scream at the same time. 

“More believable,” Raphael’s voice was urgent, soft. He stepped closer to Azazel. “As a Temptation.”

“What the _Heaven_ kind of temptation would involve saving seventy-plus human children from getting their heads chopped off?”

“Say you extorted me,” Raphael answered quickly. “For a-- a favor.” The archangel’s brief hesitation made it clear what kind of favor he was suggesting.

It took Azazel’s brain several seconds to come up with words to send to his mouth. Unlike Raphael, though, Azazel was silent during the delay.

“Are you _trying_ to Fall?” Azazel demanded. He tried for anger but ended up somewhere around panic. 

“I won’t.” Raphael’s voice was certain. “Exchanging a _favor_ for the lives of others is an act of self-sacrifice, not lust. The Almighty won’t mind and Gabriel doesn’t have to know. It won’t make for the fourth Fallen angel in your repertoire, but blackmailing an archangel into bed is still a significant demonic achievement.” Raphael’s entire face was red, and his nervous stammering undercut what would have otherwise been a somewhat suave seduction. “You look at me, and, and you insinuate-- all the time. You can have what you want, no consequences, just this once.”

The Pimpernel. That blasted Englishman must have-- must have taught Raphael this, corrupted him somehow. Azazel didn’t know who he was, but he was going to kill him. Raphael hadn’t learned a damn thing from getting captured, and now he was banking everything on the Almighty’s non-existent mercy.

Azazel was built to create temptations, not to resist them from an archangel Hell-bent on, well, being Hell-bent. One miracle and he could take Raphael away from the prison, have a nice crepe lunch, and then retire to Azazel’s flat. There, alone, he could-- He could do everything he’d ever fantasized about, and Raphael would let him.

Raphael’s hands were on the demon’s forearms, lifting them up to--

\--to put Azazel’s hands on his body. Azazel couldn’t trust himself with what he’d do with the archangel’s ribs under his hands. He shoved Raphael away roughly. His words were condescending and cruel, intended to provoke: 

“You’re the most expensive whore in Paris.”

They worked. Raphael didn’t seem to feel the need to try to keep his voice down while shouting. “Damn it all to Hell, hellfire, I am not sitting on my hands through another Inquisition. We’ve been friends for twelve hundred years. Help me! Please!”

Azazel had never questioned Heaven’s dictates, never disobeyed, not even once, and still the Almighty had decided one day that he wasn’t worthy of Heaven or even an explanation. Everyone had concluded Azazel must have done something unfathomably evil in secret to warrant a personal expulsion from Heaven by the Almighty. Demons shunned him from fear (and respect, but fear). Angels usually seemed to share Poyel’s opinion. 

The twin suppositions of Raphael’s request – that Azazel was a friend and that he was the kind of friend to ask for help – felt like being run through by Michael’s lance and Gabriel’s halberd all at once.

“Very well,” Azazel said, his voice so much softer than he wanted it to be. “Just-- buy me lunch.” Raphael’s smile was radiant. His hands fluttered in a useless, vague gesture, wanting to do something to show his happiness but not knowing what that possibly could be. “But if anyone asks,” Azazel instructed firmly, “I told you how it was going to be and then put you in your place.” Azazel had no illusions that the Almighty would draw a distinction between coercion and passion, but it was a passable enough lie.

“Absolutely,” Raphael agreed readily. “I had to heal the bruises.”

Leaving passionate bruising on Raphael wasn’t a thought he needed while trying to focus his sorcery on that many targets at once. It took him two tries to get a lock. The smell of brimstone and hot ashes filled the entire floor as the cast went off. 

The human Pimpernel would remember coming up with the wine-merchant ruse. He would remember sailing to France with one of his agents and setting up the logistics, getting captured to break into the Bastille to drug the children, and then smuggling them all out. 

What actually happened was that Azazel’s sorcery had plunked him outside of Paris with two large wagons full of empty barrels, accompanied by whoever had been standing closest to him (who, of course, would now remembered joining the Pimpernel’s crusade and eagerly anticipating his first mission), and seventy-four children who had no memory of how they’d gotten there. This time the children would be miraculously silent during the guards’ inspection.

Azazel spent a minor sorcery changing Raphael into a proper sans-colette outfit, complete with a hat to cover his distinctive hair. He used another to ensure neither of them were noticed in the chaos of Azazel’s miracle being noticed by the guards. It was exhausting. Instead of lunch, Azazel led them both to his temporary (very, very temporary; the sooner he could return to his gorgeous book-filled home in London the better) dwelling. The one-room flat was outfitted in pseudo-Roman Republic furniture and economical curtains, the very picture of Directoire sensibilities. It was dreadful.

There were no crepes at the flat, just wine. Raphael was very solicitous, fluffing the pad of the banquette for Azazel to recline on, pouring for them both and moving one of the nesting tables closer for Azazel to set his glass upon. The angel chose one of the curved chairs to inhabit, pulling off the ugly red hat and dropping it on the taller nesting table. What the archangel did could hardly be called sitting.

There was still Dagon to attend to. It would be better to do this while Azazel was too tired to follow through. In full possession of his faculties, he would easily get carried away. 

The demon drained half his glass, set it on the table, and then slid all the way down until he was more lying than reclining.

“Come sit on my lap, my dear,” he told Raphael.

The archangel dropped his wineglass. It shattered on the floor, wine seeping across the wood. Raphael-- well, fluttered was really the only word for it, searching for and finding a towel for the wine and then picking up the pieces of glass. 

“I haven’t changed my mind about the favor,” Azazel continued as Raphael managed the mess. “Dagon usually takes my word for things, but when I claim that I committed a major miracle to Tempt an angel-- My dear, someone is going to check the rolls for a Temptation. I don’t have to take you. Pleasure will do nicely.”

Raphael swallowed. He nodded. It seemed to take ages for him to dispose of the glass shards in the dustbin and wash his hands. He approached the banquette and swung one long leg over Azazel to place his knee by the demon’s side. While Raphael pulled his other knee up onto the cushion, Azazel bent his legs to form a sort of chair with his thighs and pelvis. Raphael seated himself and made a pleasant sort of wiggle to get comfortable. Azazel couldn’t feel an effort pressing into him, so at least the angel had some common sense. There would be no holy fire like there’d been with Poyel. It would rather defeat the purpose of saving Raphael from the guillotine.

“Now, let down your wings.”

“My--” Raphael began, but he unfurled his wings from the aether. The feathers were better groomed than most angels, but nowhere near as what was normal for a demon. Azazel made a mental note to chide him later. Grooming your wings wasn’t _merely_ pleasant, it was _also_ good for the feathers. 

“Now lean down so I can touch them.” Azazel hadn’t known at the time the exact nature of how pleasant it had been to have Raphael’s fingers in his feathers, why it had felt so much better than grooming his wings himself. Watching humans for five thousand years or so had given him some perspective. It should feel good enough to constitute a temptation, even if stopping without any effort-bits would be a tormenting experience for Raphael.

That thought sent a thrill down Azazel’s body. 

Right. They need to move this right along before Azazel recuperated. He didn’t trust his future self with a sexually frustrated Raphael in his lap.

Raphael leaned forward, one hand above each of Azazel’s shoulders.

“Not really certain what this is going to accomplish, hellfire,” Raphael stated. 

In response Azazel trailed his fingers sideways through the middle coverts of the left wing. Raphael shivered. Azazel proceeded gently, alternating between one wing and the other. He found the sensitive spots (the alula and the greater coverts) and the ticklish ones (scapulars, tertiaries). Then the demon placed one hand on each wing and dug in without mercy. He alternated intensity, pulling roughly at the scapulars and tertiaries to keep Raphael from dissolving into giggles, running his hands through the broad flight feathers, and using the gentlest of touches on the alulas and greater coverts. Even cockless, Raphael’s hips moved of their own accord, pressing down onto Azazel’s body.

Raphael’s feathers were as soft as a psalm. His purple eyes were blown wide, a sheen of sweat soaking his cravat. Raphael was vocal, breathy when Azazel was rough and begging when he tormented the sensitive spots. He was an absolute mess when Azazel tutted and called him a wicked creature. 

Azazel wanted more. He wanted to pull Raphael down for kisses, to feel those pleasured noises against his own skin. To touch skin instead of feathers, and be touched in return. To make an effort and lock his wings with Raphael’s, to _claim_ the angel in every--

He didn’t dare. Poyel had Fallen at the moment of transition from foreplay to the main act. Azazel couldn’t risk anything that might convince the Almighty that Raphael was intending intercourse. Azazel had no idea where kissing fell on that foreplay/sex line for the Almighty. Poyel hadn’t had any interest in the humans’ mouth-touching and Azazel hadn’t had any intention of doing more than the absolute minimum necessary to break Poyel’s certainty.

Azazel should have stopped when Raphael’s arms stopped being able to hold him up. That was enough temptation to generate a report.

But Raphael was pleading so sweetly for Azazel _not_ to stop, ragged and wet and raw. Surely, a little more couldn’t hurt. Just until the angel asked him to stop lest an effort manifest on its own.

The demon laid his legs flat so Raphael could lie on top of him. With his right hand, he urged Raphael to hook his chin over the demon’s shoulder. Azazel could feel the archangel panting against the skin above his collar. Raphael was gripping the demon’s shoulders tightly enough to bruise. The urgency of his desire was deeply satisfying.

Azazel used his other hand to grab the top joint of one wing and double his efforts. Raphael’s hips rolled against the demon’s thighs in a stuttering rhythm. 

“You wicked creature,” Azazel scolded lightly, “look at you. What would Heaven think if they saw you like this, trying to climax from having your wings played with? But they haven’t seen, and they won’t. I’m the only one who has ever done this to you.” Azazel lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “You have no idea how pleasant that is, my dear.”

Azazel wasn’t certain what reaction he’d been expecting, but a long shuddering gasp and Raphael’s entire body shaking wasn’t it. He’d either made the angel orgasm without any effort being made, or--

Azazel slipped the hand that had been stroking Raphael’s feathers down between the angel’s legs. The archangel’s trousers were damp. So were Azazel’s trousers, not that his thighs felt it through the expensive wool.

Raphael _had_ made an effort, just not the effort Azazel had been expecting.

No common sense. None. None _whatsoever_, of all the _reckless, pointless, stupid_ things to Fall for--

Nothing was happening. Oh, Raphael was nuzzling him and adjusting his position as if Azazel was some sort of marvelous body pillow, clearly settling in for a nap, and he was murmuring praises about how lovely that felt and how generally wonderful Azazel was. But there was no holy fire, no reek of burned feathers. Nothing.

Azazel tilted his head up, torn between staying angry and an unfathomable sense of relief. He would _never_ understand the Almighty. Never.

* * *


	8. Thursday, Before the Amended End

Two demons in the Bentley was one demon two many.

Azazel didn’t think Crowley was much of a demon. He hadn’t been shy with his opinion during the drive, nor about demanding an accounting of Crowley’s demonic accomplishments. When Crowley had protested that he wouldn’t be called on the carpet by Azazel, Azazel had listed his own demonic _curriculum vitae_.

The list was--

Well, frankly, impressive. Much more so than Crowley’s reluctantly-provided widespread annoyances and forays into infrastructure. Azazel pointed out the comparative deficiency immediately.

For all Aziraphale’s frivolous miracle use and his inability to maintain any level of detachment from the physical world and its pleasures, he was actually good at his job. He had a knack for humans. Almost all of the competing assignments they’d had had chosen Aziraphale, not Crowley. Heaven had even tried to promote him, once, only to turn the promotion into a greater commendation when they’d changed their minds on the other principalities’ chances against Crowley. And wasn’t that itself an indication of his effectiveness, Arrangement or no?

Azazel, on the other hand, had managed an equal amount of diabolical persuasion in addition to tricking seven angels into Falling. 

Aziraphale didn’t like it. He wanted Azazel out of the car and gone as much as Crowley did.

Worse, Azazel seemed to believe in the justness of Hell’s rebellion as much as Aziraphale had once believed in Heaven. (And still did, to some extent, if he was completely honest.) Aziraphale’s attempts to diffuse the situation had been greeted with an imperious command to stay out of Hell’s business. 

Aziraphale thought that Raphael could at least _try_ to reign in his demon. But as an archangel, Raphael did technically outrank him, and with the representatives of Hell fighting it wouldn’t do for the angels to also be sniping at each other. It set a bad example.

Raphael’s silence was disturbing on another level. Aziraphale had always thought Crowley was more or less content to let Aziraphale lead because the demon was, at heart, quite a nice person, and therefore recognized (deep down) the inherent superiority of good. But Raphael seemed to have a similar contentment towards Azazel. 

A demon, especially a demon who broke angels, would have pursued his Heavenly Adversary as Crowley had. But Raphael had not consistently rejected even the barest hint of anything other than a professional relationship for six thousand years like Aziraphale. Not with Azazel’s hand covering Raphael’s on the stick shift, well prior to the failed Armageddon.

“Well that’s a bit eviler-than-thou,” Crowley snarled at Azazel.

“Yes, I _am_ eviler-than-thou, quite a bit, actually. That’s my _point_.”

It was too similar, too similar by _half_ and Aziraphale couldn’t take it anymore. 

“Now that is enough,” Aziraphale said, matching Azazel’s lofty tone. He laid a silencing hand on Crowley’s wrist. “Raphael, do something, _please_.” 

So much for setting a good example. 

“How much did soul contracts in London spike after the M25 opened?” Raphael asked evenly.

After several false-start syllables and a sideways glance at Aziraphale, Crowley finally answered, “mmnotgonna answer that.” 

“Ten percent? Fifteen?” Raphael guessed.

“Retired. Don’t need a performance review.” Crowley slumped down, his shins pressed against the back of Azazel’s seat.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale asked softly. Crowley had only made one-on-one temptations when they were assignments on the checklist. That what he’d come up with on his own was always non-specific, non-individualized, and rather petty in many respects… it had always seemed like mercy. Raphael’s question was troubling. Had it been strategy, instead?

Crowley set his jaw in mulish silence.

“Fallen or not, angels are built for specific purposes, hellfire,” Raphael continued. “Doling out jobs based on who’s crueler or kisses up to the boss like Hell does doesn’t magically make us capable of human versatility. You were a principality, and you approach tempting like a principality – focusing on your assigned person or persons like a... celestial factory-man. Archangels are administrators: large groups and long-term strategy. People are meaner, more insecure, and more isolated from each other where he’s from, I can guarantee it. ‘Love your neighbor’ isn’t getting very far there anymore than Hell’s ‘every man for himself’ succeeds against me cultivating the welfare state here. Winning battles isn’t the same as winning the war.” 

Azazel drew his hand away from Raphael’s. Clearly he didn’t like that answer any more than Aziraphale did.

“Heaven does all right,” Aziraphale corrected, feeling like he was obligated to at least make it look like Heaven hadn’t completely ignored Crowley’s crowd-based temptations as unimportant. Old habits. “They narrowed the definition of ‘neighbor’ somewhat, partially embraced weapons in the right hands, and placed more emphasis on defending righteousness against sin and secularization, rather than charity. Humanity seems content with the new thinking. They’ve expanded on it quite enthusiastically.” In most unpleasant ways.

Raphael let go of the wheel and nearly turned around in his seat. Azazel hastily grabbed the wheel with one hand.

“Sandalphon?” Raphael’s voice was breathy with anger. “Are you telling me that Heaven is taking strategy advice from that ignorant, short-sighted, war-mongering, pain-happy _bootlicker_?! Did they give him my department? My _people_?”

“My dear,” Azazel said tightly, “I would like to remind you that I don’t actually know what I’m doing, so if you don’t want to discorporate us all--”

Raphael turned back around. He didn’t need to hold the wheel to drive, but it was best to have his eyes on the road.

“I think,” Azazel stated, fidgeting his hands before folding them primly in his lap, “that we should table this discussion and focus on dealing with the matter at hand, namely, this ‘Adam’s’ alteration of the very structure of time in the universe, or… whatever he has done. Fixing that and averting Armageddon are problems enough.” He nodded once. As if he hadn’t started this fight in the first place. Insufferable.

Several miles went by in silence. They were in Tadfield proper, almost to Adam’s house. It would be over soon, Aziraphale was certain. 

“You didn’t tell me,” Crowley whispered. He’d slumped even farther down in the seat, in a position that couldn’t possibly have been comfortable if Crowley wasn’t part serpent. He was looking out the window at the stars.

“I didn’t think you’d care,” Aziraphale replied just as quietly. “You did rebel, after all, and you seemed, well. Rather content being-- your own man. So to speak.”

Crowley shrugged. “It had it’s moments. Listen, angel--”

“Best not to think on it,” Aziraphale cut the demon off. It had always done the trick before. “As you say, you are retired now.” They were on their own side. The burden of ghosts from the previous sides was heavy enough without feeding them.

The Bentley pulled onto Adam’s street. There were police cars surrounding the Young house. They had been there long enough to erect a barrier to keep away the nosy neighbors willing to brave the December cold for a little bit of gossip. Raphael parked slightly away from the small crowd. They could see the Youngs through the living room window, lit like a zoetrope by the lamps within. They were talking to a pair of severe gentlemen in suits who were most definitely investigators from out of town. Adam himself was nowhere to be seen, and neither were the Them.

“I’m going to guess the kid’s not there,” Raphael said. “I mean, nothing else about this has gone smoothly, why start now? Hellfire, you mind making one of the constables more talkative?” Azazel snapped his fingers. One of the officers manning the barrier stiffened noticeably.

“You could have just asked,” Aziraphale complained.

“Sure, police love talking about active cases with complete strangers.” Raphael climbed out of the car. 

Aziraphale supposed he had a point. He still didn’t have to default to hypnotism as easily as his demonic counterpart. It was disturbing. Aziraphale and Crowley followed behind the other two as they wove through the clumps of people watching the scene unfold, as undramatic as it was. Still, in a small town, there wasn’t much else to do. 

The constable’s story wasn’t at all what Aziraphale expected: Adam had left with his music teacher that morning and hadn’t been seen since.

“Did the kid have a music teacher?” Crowley asked.

“Not that I am aware, no,” Aziraphale stated. He turned to the betwitched constable. “Hello. Ah, what of the boy’s friends? Were they kidnapped as well?”

“Adam doesn’t have friends,” the constable said mechanically. “He’s a weird kid. Loner, reads a lot, tried to build magical bodyguards out of mud. His room is full of weird stuff, like some weird Jewish remake of The Coven. He named his dog ‘Demonsbane,’ for Christ’s sake. His parents should be just as glad to be rid of him, if you ask me.” 

Aziraphale had no idea what a “remake of The Coven” was, but building soldiers out of mud sounded like trying to make golems. Angelic script looked like Hebrew to the untrained eye. Someone had thought of the same idea Crowley and Aziraphale had – but tutoring the right boy to be firmly on Heaven’s side. It was entirely possible that talking Adam out of Armageddon was no longer a solution. Worse, a Hellhound named “Demonsbane” would not be an adorable terrier who chased cats. It would likely be closer to its true form, and it would most certainly try to kill Crowley on sight.

“This music teacher, what do they look like? Anyone know?” Crowley asked. 

“The description we have out is for an American male, a hundred and eighty centimeters, dark hair, square build. Parents say he has purple eyes, but we expect those are contacts which he won’t be wearing now that he’s made off with the boy,” the constable recited.

Raphael made a long, low growl that rolled into the name: “Gabriel.”

“Yes, well, thank you, that’s all the information we need,” Aziraphale said. “You’ve been most helpful.” Azazel released the constable with a snap. The four celestial entities wove their way back through the neighbors. No one stopped to question them, which was probably another demonic miracle from Azazel. 

“So Gabriel has been grooming Adam while the two of them were instructing Warlock, which is concerning enough,” Aziraphale thought aloud to Crowley, “but how could he possibly know who Adam was? Or what he was, rather. Hastur burned the medical records, there was nothing to lead him here. We only found out because of Agnes – speaking of which, where is Anathema? The book would shed light on the matter.”

“Who? What book?” Raphael demanded.

“Well, since Gabriel made off with the bloody Antichrist, she’s not going to be here in Tadfield. She’s going to be wherever Armageddon is happening, with the book. No help there,” Crowley replied. He opened the Bentley’s door and slid behind the front seat. The car didn’t seem to recognize Crowley at all. Aziraphale slid after him. “So where are we at? Shadwell?”

“Who or what is an anathema or a shad well, and what book would tell us where Armageddon is happening?” Raphael repeated after he’d climbed in as well, sitting half-turned in the seat. 

“Anathema Device is the last living descendant of Agnes Nutter,” Aziraphale explained. “She possesses the only surviving copy of the Nice And Accurate Prophesies.” Azazel made an appropriately impressed sound. At least the demon wasn’t a total loss. “When we did this we ran into her on the road where we met you. Shadwell is the head of the Witchfinder Army, you’ve already met him--”

“No, he hasn’t,” Crowley said, his voice oddly low, like his mind was somewhere else. “He’s an archangel. He wouldn’t need to steal holy water from a church. And why would he need human agents? He commands a quarter of the host of Heaven.”

Raphael’s mouth opened in an “oh” of surprised understanding. His eyes were unfocused, looking at the roof of the Bentley without seeing it.

“‘The only one in this room who should be Fallen is you,’” Raphael said in the same low, slow tones that Crowley was using. “But how are you two still here?” Raphael asked.

“I felt-- something.” Crowley’s voice was still odd, but he was becoming more animated as he warmed to his unspecified idea. “The spellwork, probably. I pulled us out of time because whatever it was, it was bad. But it wasn’t just ‘popping out’ like normal. It felt like time had turned into a basket of worms. I barely kept us together.”

“Gabriel, you are an idiot every day of the week. Couldn’t you take just one day off?” Raphael addressed his statement to the Bentley’s roof.

“I’m sorry, could someone please explain--” Aziraphale asked at the same time Azazel did.

“We – well, they-- stopped Armageddon,” Raphael explained. “So Gabriel tried to stop us/them from stopping it by changing the past. He couldn’t send an angel back, not with only three archangels to work with, but a note? That he could do.”

“But accurate prophesies are useless,” Azazel exclaimed. “They’re too specific. Until you stumble on to the context, you have no idea what they mean. Trying to defy one is madness. You would have no idea what got you to the point in the first place.”

“Yeah, but this is Gabriel,” Crowley said, leaning forward and resting his arms on the sides of either seat. “He’s not exactly the sharpest arrow in the Heavenly quiver. I will bet-- I’ll bet he sent back Adam’s information so he could make sure the kid wasn’t a ‘disobedient little brat.’ And-- he must have told himself to tell Michael not to put my name on the list. Because if Aziraphale and I are both in Heaven, there’s no one in Hell to conspire with.”

“But it backfired,” Aziraphale said, feeling the causes and effects in his brain like an old-fashioned switch-board. “Because something about you not Falling caused _me_ to-- to question or rebel in some fashion--”

“I didn’t,” Azazel stated.

“Well, obviously you did, you’re Fallen,” Aziraphale said, waving his hand.

“I _didn’t_,” Azazel repeated. “The Almighty just grabbed me by the neck and chucked me down last.”

“The Almighty would not throw someone down without cause,” Aziraphale argued. 

“God would if it was part of the Ineffable Plan,” Crowley said. “I mean, Gabriel gets a note from the future saying ‘don’t do this or Armageddon is averted’ and the Almighty makes sure it happens anyway, you’re pretty much announcing that stopping Armageddon is your goal--”

“That’s too subtle for Gabriel to understand,” Raphael countered. “He’s more likely to decide there was some kind of list mix-up and go at me-- You? Us. With holy water the minute we’re Earthside. He _altered time,_ for Heaven’s sake.”

Azazel got out of the car. He walked, straight-backed and slow, looking for all the world like he’d just popped out for a night-time stroll. His black clothes would be nearly invisible to human eyes, with only flashing police lights for illumination. Raphael swore and climbed out after him. 

Crowley put his hand out to forestall Aziraphale from following. “He’s going to need a minute. Look, if we’re right about Gabriel trying to change time, we’ve got a bigger problem than Armageddon. It’s… so stupid to mess with time.”

“I don’t understand. Why?” Aziraphale asked. 

“It’s…. it’s the grandfather paradox.” Crowley held his hands apart. “Let’s say you’re human, yeah? You somehow send yourself back in time,” he moved his left hand to his right, “and you kill your grandfather before he meets your grandmother.” He dropped his right hand. “No grandmother means no dad, means no you.”

“So there’s no one to go back to kill the grandfather,” Aziraphale surmised. Crowley raised both hands together in response.

“So gramps is alive.” He moved the left hand back towards the left. “Meets gran, they have dad, and there you are again. But you don’t remember doing this all before, because the first timeline was erased when you killed your grandfather. So you do it all again.” Crowley moved his hands together.

“But now there’s no one to kill the grandfather again.”

“The only way to stop the paradox is to either to somehow stop yourself from going back in the first place, or to make sure that someone in the future sets things in motion to kill the grandfather even though you aren’t born. There’s no way I-- he’s-- we’re ever going to sit still and let the other three archangels send a note to change time back in time. We’re _going_ to insist on halting the paradox, because it’s mental not to. Worse, with Armageddon happening, any one of the archangels could die before it comes time to send the note back. Even if they’re not dead, they’re going to be too busy fighting Hell to risk all of them getting knocked out of power for a week by a time spell. Closing the paradox is doomed to failure.

“Remember those singularities?” Crowley continued. “They hold everything together, and every time the timeline rewrites itself, they get a little bit weaker. Even if you close the paradox successfully, you’re going to damage those singularities once just by making the closed loop in the first place. I don’t know how much re-writing they can take. Hawking guessed a handful at most, and that... sounds about right. I don’t know if they’d collapse inward and implode or dissolve and everything flies apart, but when they go, everything affected by time will go as well.”

Aziraphale’s head hurt. 

Only the Almighty wasn’t affected by time. Angels, demons, the physical universe: whatever happened there wouldn’t be anyone around to fix it. God would have to start over from scratch.

“Well,” Aziraphale said slowly. “At least we have several tries before everything Falls apart.”

Crowley shook his head. “We may have done this three or four times already. We wouldn’t remember. We’ve got to get it right this time, even though we don’t know what or if we’ve tried anything before. This could be our last shot.”

Aziraphale didn’t know what to say. What could he say? This was so much worse than a lost Antichrist, and neither he nor Crowley were terribly competent as these things went.

The car doors opened. Raphael and Azazel had returned.

“All right,” Raphael ordered. “We’ve got to move quickly. Gabriel is picking the staging grounds of Armageddon, so it’s going to be the Plains of Megiddo. We don’t have time for a five hour plane ride. So, we’re going to head back to the home office and split up. Aziraphale and I will go through Heaven, you and Azazel cut through Hell. We should be able to get around the distance that way, if we can get through the crowd. A Hellhound isn’t a problem for me, so if you and hellfire get there first, don’t get killed.”

“Solid plan, sketchy on the details,” Crowley remarked.

“The only safe way to correct this is to stop Gabriel from sending that note back in the first place. We need him to create a message for his future-self saying it didn’t work. If you recharge while you’re in Hell, you can pull yourself, Aziraphale, and the message out of time before the next reset. Time will be fluid during the re-write, so stepping back into time right before the event shouldn’t be any more difficult than stepping out linearly like you did last time. If time is never altered, then this wrong timeline will never happen. Now, Gabriel is not going to listen if he’s fighting some endless stalemate with Hell on Earth. So, the plan is--”

“We kill the Antichrist,” Azazel said. “Then aggressively persuade Gabriel that it’s in his best interests to cooperate.”

“Killing a child and beating an archangel into submission is not our plan, hellfire,” Raphael stated firmly. “The boy may have been groomed by Gabriel, but he is still a human with free will. You, myself, Khizir, and Crowley will deal with War, Pollution, Famine, and Gabriel. We’ll just have to hope that Death doesn’t snap his finger and call it curtains on us all. Aziraphale, you’ll need to convince this Antichrist to change his mind.” 

Aziraphale nodded. 

“And if he doesn’t?” Azazel demanded. “Are you really going to let the entire universe, angels and all, be destroyed over one boy?”

“He’s going to.”

“You don’t know that,” Azazel countered.

“It’ll work, hellfire, that’s the end of it.” He turned around and started the Bentley. Azazel thinned his lips and raised an eyebrow.

It was a good plan. Aziraphale had a terrible feeling about it.

* * *


	9. 1893 AD

Before Raf had been sent Earthside, Khizir had been a watcher. Nanael had been the other. Between the two of them, they had split the Earth by hemisphere, organizing the Earth Observation files and coordinating with the angels who maintained the magical apparatuses for both placement and maintenance. When each of the Heavenly representatives on Earth had Fallen, Khizir had been tasked with retracing their final days. 

The common thread hadn’t been hard to find. Vehuel and Mebahiah had had lengthy conversations with Azazel right before they’d gone silent, a silence that had ended with public confrontations with Gabriel. Poyel had also talked with Azazel before trying some sort of human beverage, and then taken the demon out of aether’s view. Whatever had happened behind those closed doors had angered the Almighty greatly. God hadn’t even waited for whatever happened to be dealt with by the archangels. Just an unexplained drop into hot sulphur, like Azazel.

Of course Raf had volunteered to be the fourth representative on Earth. He had never sent a lesser angel against danger he wasn’t prepared to square off against himself, and Azazel was no exception. 

Gabriel had been vehemently against it. (Which was odd. He and Raf were so frequently at odds, Khizir had rather thought Gabriel would welcome the chance to get him out of Heaven). Michael and Uriel had voted with Gabriel, as ever. That would have been that, but Metatron had reluctantly conveyed God’s support for Raphael’s plan.

Coordinating maintenance schedules and coordinating a department’s schedules weren’t that different, Raf had said, and both Khizir and Nanael had the best sense of perspective from having seen human history secondhand. Zephon and Nakir had been assigned the maintenance scheduling. Khizir and Nanael had been promoted to assistant supervisors for the department. While Raphael would do as much as he could remotely, most of the day-to-day tasks would fall to the two of them. They weren’t to let Sandalphon bully them into second-guessing themselves, and if they had problems with Gabriel, Raf would be back as soon as they asked.

Then he’d left to face Azazel’s magic.

Gabriel and Uriel had started huffing about decorum and formality and discipline not twenty-four Earth-hours afterward.

Khizir and Nanael had ignored them. They had instructions, you see, Nanael said. 

Khizir would have ignored Gabriel and his lackeys even without instructions. Angels were specialized, built to fulfill a specific role from the inside out. No angel from one order would ever be able to notice or dream up what an angel from a different order would. Listening to each other, being connected to each other -- it was essential for any kind of efficient problem solving. Heaven needed efficiency more than ever, with half the Host Fallen or dead. You couldn’t have cooperation without trust, and there was more trust where there was fondness. Raf had his quarter of Heaven working the way it ought – the way, in Khizir’s opinion, God preferred it to be run. Khizir wasn’t about to tear that apart just because Gabriel wanted to double-down on being wrong.

And he was wrong. Khizir knew it. She could _prove_ it. She had facts, figures, quotes from Metatron’s human mouthpieces, even a few quotes from the Almighty directly. 

But Gabriel, Michael, and Uriel would never listen to her. She was only an Authority, two ranks below even Gabriel’s Dominion sycophant, Sandalphon. The archangels didn’t even listen to Raf, and he was one of them. They believed Heaven was not a place for feeling, for individuality, for connection, for hope. Just celestial cogs in a well-oiled war machine. 

There was so much more to being an angel than war. Khizir knew it. Raf and Nanael knew it. Most of their department could see the hazy outline of what being an angel really was, as if in an old Roman mirror. But outside that? Everyone was too blinded by blind obedience, by tradition, by the way things were always done, by the threat of Falling.

If Raf Fell, without his authority backing Khizir and Nanael--

What they had, pale imitation of what could be that it was, would fall apart. Gabriel wouldn’t hesitate to put Sandalphon in Raf’s place. For all Khizir knew, he’d tried already but Raf had shot him down in favor of Khizir and Nanael.

Khizir was currently on Earth. She’d told Nanael she had to kip down to Earth for a quick meeting with Raf before office hours. 

Humans were forever getting into disagreements over bone structure and melanin content. At the moment, the English were vehemently opposed to Middle Eastern and Egyptian descent. The English considered them fit only to provide manual labor at far-away dig sites -- even as wealthy English citizenry gobbled up every Egyptian, Syrian, and Babylonian antiquity they could get their hands on. They were even going so far as to chisel the noses off said antiquities so the statues would look more like statues of Caucasians.

Khizir wasn’t human, but her corporation had golden-brown skin, dark hair, and a wide-set facial-bone structure. Dealing with petty human prejudices didn’t appeal, so Khizir had spent a miracle on a general glamour of goodwill among the races spreading out in a sixty-foot vicinity from her corporation. It would keep her from being accosted by either hostility or being treated like a curiosity. 

Of course, that wouldn’t stop humans from being difficult for other reasons. Apparently someone dressed like a shop-girl and trying to order a drink by its description instead of its name wasn’t something the waiter at this cafe felt like he should be dealing with this morning.

“Listen,” Khizir stated. “I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s red and a little sweet, but not too sweet. It comes in a bottle topped by a round bit of bark you shove in the top.” Raf usually had human treats for those who had in-person appointments, sweet bits of flavored matter or strange liquids with a variety of tastes. She’d never learned the name of the one she liked, Raf just poured it when she showed up.

“It’s a little early for wine, miss,” the waiter said primly. “As I said before, perhaps a nice cup of tea--”

“Just bring it. Please.”

Just when she thought she was going to have to spend another miracle on compliance (and file a report on herself when she got back to Heaven), the waiter left.

Khizir opened the file folder in her hands. The Observation File picture within was why she wanted the red stuff-- wine. The wine. She would remember now. 

Raf flexed between male and female presentation as the task at hand warranted, even if for office hours he stuck with a masculine suit. In the photo he was wearing female clothes. His spindly limbs and pointed face made the lack of breasts look normal. Humans always thought he was whatever he presented as. Khizir’s curved corporation couldn’t pull off the same flexibility without considerably more effort. 

She couldn’t see the appeal of female presentation, herself. Raf could not be wearing this much cloth and put this many pins in his hair just to look pretty, except Raf absolutely would.

The waiter set the glass of red on her table. Khizir waved him away and took a drink. It was a lot less sweet than the one Raf usually gave her, but the same basic flavor. It was-- oddly comforting.

The photograph hadn’t driven Khizir from Heaven because of Raf’s sartorial choices, questionable though they were. The problem was that Raf’s ornate hair had a snake-shaped pin in it. Azazel had put it there, and in the photo he was arranging Raf’s red curls around the gift. Snake-themed jewelry was all the rage among British humans right now. Raf’s feminine presentations had several pieces that circled neck or wrist, or were pinned to the clothes.

A hundred years ago, Azazel had enacted a major spell to save seventy-four human children from the Revolution. It hadn’t made sense then, a demon rescuing humans.

The photo-- Well, the photo suggested a motive, didn’t it? Raf hadn’t paid any heed to Azazel’s head games for twelve hundred years. As far as Khizir could tell, he just ignored them. But seventy-four human lives, gifted on a platter? That wasn’t something Raf would ignore. 

Khizir turned the photograph over. She had consulted with Intelligence and asked them to pull records on any temptations since 1793 A.D. which had resulted in a net reduction in human suffering. The file was as thick as her pinkie finger. 

That was when Khizir had decided she wanted to consume human drink while she read it. She had finished the glass by the time she finished the file. She had also changed the mind of a different waiter who had tried to ask her questions about Damascus and wouldn’t accept the answer that Khizir hadn’t been near the cradle of civilization in centuries. 

The results of Intelligence’s investigation were worse than she had imagined. Nearly a hundred temptations with net good in a hundred years. A hundred human happinesses wrapped in a bow. Khizir closed the file. And now Raf was letting the demon groom him. 

Khizir turned the empty glass round and round by the stem. Raf believed humans and angels both had choices. If anyone could be tricked into believing a demon could be redeemed, it would be Raf. 

Khizir could simply talk to Raf, of course. She could lay out the math and her concerns, explain what a disaster it would be for all of them in Heaven if he Fell. Raf would listen. Even if he didn’t agree, even if he believed that Azazel could be saved in some way, he would never put the attempt above the welfare of his staff. He’d be cautious, distant.

Khizir had watched Vehuel and Mebahiah – _especially_ Mebahiah – use the same caution in the years prior to their Falls. All it had done was slow Azazel down. Once Azazel got his claws in...

Azazel knew where Raf was soft, now. If this, this playing nice didn’t work, he’d just try something else, Khizir was certain of it. 

No, Azazel had to be dealt with _permanently._ Gabriel and the rest of them would never sanction it. Too much paperwork, too much risk of starting a war with Hell before the Almighty gave the word to start Armageddon. If she did this, there could be nothing tracing back to Heaven, nothing official. There was simply too much to lose.

Hopefully the Almighty agreed, or she’d be Azazel’s last bit of legacy. 

Her mind made up, Khizir pulled out a map and a pen from the aether. The demon had to have a home base of some form. She just had to triangulate it.

* * *

Raphael bolted upright in the bed. His heart didn’t strictly need to carry blood through his body, but it was pounding anyway. The clock on Azazel’s dresser read nearly nine o’clock and the room was in total darkness. He’d only been asleep for an hour, why was he awake?

There was a loud crash from downstairs.

“I am entirely certain this isn’t sanctioned,” Azazel’s voice said, tight with fear and trying to soothe, “so let’s take a moment to consider before you do anything rash.” There was another crash. “That was the definition of rash!”

Raphael rolled out of the bed Azazel had obtained solely because of Raphael, dressing with a miracle as he moved. He ripped the heavy curtain rod down from the window, tipping it this way and that to slough off the heavy brocade curtains. Raphael wasn’t much for hand-to-hand, more sorcerer than fighter, but with Azazel in the fray a smite or throwing holy water was simply too dangerous. Swinging a holy weapon about was just as bad. Impact from a curtain rod would damage Azazel’s corporation, but it could be healed with a snap of Azazel’s fingers as long as there was no fatal trauma. A holy weapon would damage Azazel’s actual form. The damage his corporation manifested would be sympathetic to the real injuries. No magic could short-cut that healing and a fatal blow would be fatal entirely. 

Raphael pulled the door open and ran down the narrow hallway, makeshift staff held parallel to the ground. The stairwell was too narrow to drop down with his wings, damn British architecture-- Raphael used the railing for a counter-balance, jumping down the stairs four at a time--

Azazel threw a side-table at his opponent, the books piled on it flying every which way. His forearms were bleeding from defensive wounds, deep gashes and one puncture wound.

His assailant wasn’t a demon. It was Khizir. She took the side-table’s impact without flinching, grabbing the wash basin and blessing at the same time. She threw it.

Raphael halted the molecular motion of the water as if it was a nebula. The poison spray hung in the air even as he shouted, “Enough!”

Azazel scrambled to the side to avoid the arc and onto a small bookshelf to avoid the puddle that would form when the water landed. Raphael jumped over the bannister, spreading his wings in the narrow living room and letting loose the molecules. The holy water splashed over his wings. Azazel, his table, and his vocal estimations of Raphael’s low intelligence were hidden behind him.

“Raf, get out of the way,” Khizir said, her dagger drawn up.

“Azazel, take a walk.” It came out far more supervisory than Raphael intended. 

“You cannot possibly be serious,” Azazel began.

“Now.” 

Azazel teleported away. Raphael knew he’d pay for that later, with interest. It couldn’t be helped. Khizir lowered her weapon. 

“I know,” Raphael stated, folding his wings away, “that I am not the best example in following the chain of command. But I am certainly entitled to an explanation.”

Khizir sheathed her weapon, her chin lifted in un-repentance. 

“If you Fall because of Azazel, then Gabriel gets a carte blanche to interfere with the department as much as he likes. Not that Azazel has any reason to care for the quality of Heaven. You’re just another Fallen feather in his wing to him. 

“I saw him giving you the pin, Raf, and you let him _groom you_ when you took it. I know about the last hundred years, the temptations with blessings on the side. I know about the Bastille. But I also knew if I told you that he was playing you, even if you were more careful afterwards, Azazel would just find another way like he did before. So I decided to take care of it. I didn’t expect you to be here.” Khizir crossed the distance and grabbed the hand not holding a curtain rod in her own. Her dark eyes were pleading. “Raf, you need to let me kill him. Please. There’s too much at stake. You can’t be reckless like this.” 

Azazel called him reckless all the time. Cautioned him against getting caught, set an endless series of rules for what they could and could not do (no kissing, no oral sex, penetration only with fingers, only one of them making an effort at the time, never less than partially-dressed), rules so strict that he’d teleport away and ignore Raphael for twenty years if Raphael even tried to push even one boundary a little. Anything to keep Raphael from Falling.

And here Khizir was, committing an unsanctioned extinction that would get her chucked headfirst out of Heaven if she were discovered, because there was even a chance his wings might tarnish.

The room was a ruin, books and broken wood and shattered pottery lying strewn across the carpeted wood floor, spattered in red demon blood and holy water. It was dark outside, the room lit only by moonlight. Azazel didn’t need lanterns or candles to see.

Raphael turned to lean the curtain rod against the wall to buy time. 

“How far back did you look for temptings with blessings on the side?” he asked.

“To the first, the Bastille,” Khizir said. 

He could tell her the truth, that the temptations were his. If he was ever caught by Heaven, though, Khizir would go down with him as an accomplice. But she couldn’t be faulted for believing her superior’s lies. Azazel had departed when Raphael had insisted, which was a start, seeds of a lie that was growing in the back of Raphael’s mind and dripping onto his tongue. 

“That’s sloppy investigating,” Raphael said, turning back to his subordinate. “You made a hypothesis and you looked for the data to support it. You should have pulled all the data available, and then compared your theory to that. The first temptation with a side-blessing was in 1550.” 

“So he’s been at it a little longer,” Khizir argued. “That doesn’t change anything.”

Raphael covered Khizir’s hand in his own.

“Khizir, listen to me. You don’t like how Heaven is being run. We both know it. Up until now, you’ve only shared your reservations with me. That can’t change. I get away with getting in Gabriel’s face because-- I don’t know why. But you _won’t_. As far as _anyone_ in Heaven can know, you are only following my lead because the chain of command demands it. And if I get caught, you didn’t know anything. You thought Gabriel had approved it all. Do you understand me?”

Khizir’s eyes went wide. She considered, reconsidered, and considered again before speaking. 

“He’s your asset,” she breathed. “You’re doing-- you’re managing the humans through _him_, but demons can’t bless they can only-- tempt. Is that why-- has he been-- your inside man this entire time?”

“You don’t know that,” Raphael said sharply. “If I have Azazel, it’s safe to assume that Hell has someone in Heaven.”

Khizir released Raphael to clap her hands over her mouth.

“I didn’t tell anyone, not even Nanael, that I was coming here,” she said, her voice muffled by her hands.

Well, that was something. 

“Raf, if Hell finds out-- Gabriel won’t lift a finger, not even one, never. How are you going to keep Azazel from giving you up to save himself?”

Azazel wouldn’t, but Khizir wouldn’t believe that. Hell finding out though-- Raphael had been so confident Hell _wouldn’t_ discover the arrangement. But if Khizir had figured them out, then a demon might, and he’d need some kind of insurance for Azazel. 

“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. You’re right about reckless.”

Khizir moved her arms awkwardly, stepping forward and back twice. Finally her arms closed around Raphael’s upper arms, her chin hooked over his shoulder.

Human sisters did this to their older brothers. Some of the aristocrats had done it to the Pimpernel, human or angelic. Angels didn’t have any gesture similar, of course she’d had to borrow the humans’. 

“Raf, you can’t get caught. You just can’t,” Khizir stated.

“I have no plans in that direction,” Raphael said. It was all true. It was all a lie. It was the first lie of commission he’d ever told Khizir. Khizir who trusted, who followed his lead, and who believed Heaven could be better. Should be better. 

If he closed his eyes, just for a moment, Raphael could believe the lie was true. It didn’t help. It was one more falsehood on the pile, slung on next to the lies to Gabriel, Uriel, Michael, even God. The only person he didn’t lie to was Azazel. Azazel lied enough to Raphael for the both of them: that this was just temptation, just an arrangement, that demons couldn’t feel love at all and that Raphael couldn’t care for a demon, that they had nothing in common. Lies so fervent Azazel could almost believe them, and if a demon could pray, lies Azazel prayed the Almighty believed as well. 

Satan was the Father of the Lie. When Khizir released him and set Azazel’s living room to rights with a wave of her hand, Raphael couldn’t imagine why he wasn’t Fallen already.

* * *

Raphael gave Azazel his insurance three days later, in a sealed metal canteen. Glass and ceramic were too risky if Azazel dropped them accidentally. 

“I am not dousing myself in a- a- suicide pill the minute you’re through with me!” Azazel spat, fussy and furious. The threw his bread at the ducks all at once in preparation for putting his hat on and leaving.

“It’s a _weapon_, hellfire,” Raphael explained. “You unscrew the cap, throw it at the other bloke, and fly hard for Alpha Centauri. Plenty of extra planets up there, no one would notice you.”

Azazel paused mid-rant. He slowly reached out for the canteen. “Oh,” he said softly. 

After a moment, he continued, “If you’re caught, you could run, too, you know.”

“No.” Raphael watched the ducks swim along the water, the swans eating across the way. “Whatever happens, I have to confess that I lied to my people and they knew nothing. I can’t do that if I run.”

“Well, yes, that’s very noble, but surely--”

“It’s not open for discussion, hellfire. You’ve never been responsible for anyone but yourself.”

Azazel was offended. He huffed about ungrateful angels and not needing Raphael’s companionship, and he stormed away, but he took the holy water with him. It’d blow over in fifty years or so. It always did. Raphael didn’t move from the water’s edge.

The Pimpernel had warned him it would feel like this, a century ago. He still did, whenever Raphael stopped by for a chat in Heaven. The warning didn’t make it feel any less crushing, or less terribly alone.

* * *


	10. The Amended End

Ascending the stairs to Heaven with Raphael was…

He wasn’t Crowley. Raphael had never been the Prometheus in Eden or Crawly in Hell. The angel standing next to him hadn’t smuggled human children aboard the Ark or shown Jesus the world before his death. He wasn’t forgiven because he’d never been condemned in the first place. Aziraphale knew that. He did.

But he looked like Crowley, and there was just enough similarity that Aziraphale’s largely-decorative heart ached when they ascended the stairs. 

Heaven looked different in this timeline. It was still open architecture lines and bright lights, populated by quiet angels in neutral tones and pale pastels. But there were several angels in the milieu with bright accents: bold ties and scarves, vibrant shirts and shoes. The colorful angels were friendlier than usual with each other, while most of the regularly-dressed angels hurried by. A few of the quiet ones smiled too brightly or waved too vigorously, but no more.

“Oh my God,” an angel exclaimed on seeing Aziraphale, dropping the files she was carrying. Aziraphale didn’t recognize her. She had dark hair and dark eyes, wearing a bright purple shirt with her gray pant-suit. “Raf, I know I said-- I didn’t imagine--” The strange angel put both her arms around Aziraphale. “Welcome back.”

Aziraphale didn’t know what to do. Angels did not hug in his time. Anything more than a shoulder pat was unheard of. It wasn’t unwelcome, of course, just the most bizarre--

“That’s not Azazel,” Raphael said, putting a hand on the other angel’s shoulder. She stepped back. “Gabriel’s been mucking with time. That’s Aziraphale, never Fallen, from another timeline. Gabriel accidentally made a demon version of me we’re going to run into, fair warning for that. Aziraphale, Khizir.”

“You don’t mess with time,” Khizir said incredulously. “You have no way of knowing if anyone else has before-- why would you ever risk--”

“I know, and we’ve got to fix it. Come on.” Raphael snapped his fingers and the files on the ground disappeared. The bulk of the angels were lining up for the quartermaster, getting arms and armor for the battle ahead. Raphael led Khizir and Aziraphale around the line, headed for the suspended globe in the center of Heaven. Raphael outlined their theory about Gabriel’s note-to-past-self and the broad sketches of their plan to fix it. 

“Raf,” Khizir said, halting half-way and grabbing her superior by the arm. “If what you’re saying is true, then these other yous aren’t dopplegangers. They’re holdovers from the previous timeline.”

“The correct timeline,” Raphael said crisply, taking Khizir’s arm to urge her along. 

Aziraphale hadn’t thought about it, too busy worrying about the world and time itself melting down into nothing. Raphael wasn’t Crowley, not in any way that mattered, but he also was Crowley in every way that could possibly matter. 

“Raf!” Khizir repeated. “You are not supposed to be Fallen. All our progress--”

“Won’t matter if none of you exist,” Raphael implored. “I should have Fallen ten times over by now, you know that, Khizir. Now we know why I haven’t. Heaven will be all right. I promise.”

Aziraphale couldn’t breathe. His vision blurred. He wished, very suddenly and sharply, that Crowley was there.

He wouldn’t remember. Neither of them would, when all this was fixed.

Khizir was moving again, and Raphael, too. Aziraphale watched them in his peripheral vision as he pointed his eyes upward toward the ceiling, blinked rapidly, and tried to compose himself. 

He had just cleared his vision when they arrived at the globe. There was a problem, standing in front of the globe in an orange suit and a slasher smile.

“The main gate will be moved to the plains of Megiddo when the Antichrist commands the four horsemen to ride,” Sandalphon stated, happier than Aziraphale had ever seen him. “Until then all travel to Earth from Heaven is closed.”

“Stand aside, Sandalphon,” Raphael ordered. Aziraphale and Khizir stood slightly behind him. Unlike Khizir, Sandalphon didn’t recognize Aziraphale at all. Of course, with Raphael in place, Sandalphon had no reason to be as knowledgable about Hell’s Earthly representative as his counterpart in Aziraphale’s timeline. 

It made Aziraphale’s head hurt. 

“‘I don’t take orders from you.’” Sandalphon’s hands were clasped in front of him, as dangerous-looking as if he’d been holding a weapon. “Gabriel was very clear that you, most especially, weren’t allowed on the battlefield before it started.”

“According to the Great Plan, I’m supposed to sound the trumpet beginning the battle,” Raphael argued. “Not Gabriel. And while we’re on the topic of things wrong with that sentence, isn’t _Michael_ supposed to be leading the four Horsemen, not the Antichrist?”

Sandalphon didn’t know what to say to that at first. He finally managed, “if the Antichrist turns over command, Michael will be leading them.”

“And who said that the timing of Armageddon was no longer my purview, Gabriel or God?”

“Metatron approved the changes,” Sandalphon countered.

Metatron had approved the changes in Aziraphale’s time because Raphael had Fallen. 

But listening to Raphael, Aziraphale couldn’t help but consider that the demon Crowley, Serpent in Eden, had been the one to tell Aziraphale (and by extension Heaven) that the eleven-year count-down and begun. And like his angelic counterpart, Crowley had also been the one to declare that this Armageddon should be stopped. 

“And did he actually go up to the First Choir to obtain approval, or just sign off on his own? And why wasn’t I informed my duties had changed?” Raphael asked.

“It’s not my place to question authority,” Sandalphon demurred. 

Aziraphale had come up with the idea that the Great Plan and the Ineffable Plan were different in some essential way and that stopping Armageddon was part of the latter mostly as a prevarication--

“The only authority that matters in Heaven is God’s,” Raphael’s voice was definitive, brooking no argument. “No one, not Gabriel, not Michael, and not me gets to give orders that run counter to the Almighty. Now, stand aside.”

– but Crowley was equally insistent that it was the truth. Aziraphale had considered his insistence a means of coming to terms with Falling for questioning when Aziraphale had not Fallen for far more definitive defiance.

But between Azazel getting thrown down when Raphael hadn’t and this entire conversation-- Aziraphale now knew what humans meant by “the hair on the back of one’s neck standing up.”

“No,” Sandalphon refused. “I was ordered to keep you from Earth. Unlike you, I follow orders.”

“Those orders are wrong,” Raphael began. He was interrupted by Khizir stabbing Sandalphon through the chin, the point of her dagger sticking up out of the top of Sandalphon’s bald skull.

Aziraphale let out a sound somewhere between a scream and a gag and covered his mouth. Khizir pulled the dagger out with a wet squelch. Sandalphon’s body dropped.

Best not to think about it. Really, very much, most definitely best not to think about it. Not now. Singularities. Temporal paradoxes. Universe flying apart or maybe imploding. Much, much more important things to deal with at the moment.

“Sandalphon will be fine once time resets and we don’t have time to argue with him.” Khizir wiped the silvery ichor off her blade on Sandalphon’s suit.

Raphael made a series of nonsense sounds before settling on, “right.” It was the first time he really sounded like Crowley. Raphael grabbed Aziraphale’s upper arm and touched the part of the globe that corresponded to Megiddo. 

They appeared in the middle of an army base that looked eerily like Tadfield, save the arid terrain outside the fence. Adam, a giant red-eyed Irish wolfhound (the Hellhound, obviously), and Gabriel were standing in front of the four Horsemen. The seven of them were staring in mute surprise at their heavenly interlopers.

“I am out of here with that shit,” Aziraphale heard a male voice say. He turned around to see the chain link gate of the main entrance open. The human voice was one of the two guards, who hopped on his motorbike and rode out. The guard from the other tower had apparently decided his companion had the right of it, because he and his motorbike followed close behind.

Anathema swung onto her bicycle and rode in through the open gate.

“Thanks!” she yelled, waving as she rode by. “Good luck!”

“You, too!” Aziraphale called back politely.

“You better be here because you had a change of heart,” Gabriel said to Raphael. 

Raphael summoned his staff, gold wrapped with a snake. He teleported forward, hooking his staff under Demonsbane’s throat and pulling his arms tight, pinning the back of the Hellhound’s head to his stomach. Then he shot skyward, wings unfurling, taking the Hellhound with him. The bubbling craters that would signal Azazel’s and Crowley’s arrival were nowhere to be seen.

“Actually,” Aziraphale said clearly as he stepped forward, because changing minds was his part of the plan, “we’re here to change yours. This-- The entire universe, angels and all, will be destroyed if you don’t stop what you are doing at once.” 

Gabriel blinked. Like Khizir, he clearly thought Aziraphale was Azazel, but unlike Khizir, there was no joy at the impossible coming true.

“I don’t know how the Hell Raphael pulled this off, and I don’t care,” he stated. “Adam.”

Adam snapped his fingers.

* * *


	11. Eleven Years Before the Amended End

Humans had many inventions that Raphael was fond of – alcohol, his 1926 Bentley, and cinema being the top three – but the one which had made his life easiest was the typewriter. He no longer had to painstakingly mix bone paint, draw an enochian mandala on his floor, carefully arrange and light candles, have conversation after conversation with the glowing light on his ceiling or the subordinate descending from the portal, and then scrape candle wax and paint off his floor each day. Instead, Raphael had been able to engrave the mandala once apiece on two Remington 2s, send one upstairs, and then simply alternate typing with whoever was manning the other typewriter. The upstairs typewriter never degraded – there was no entropy in Heaven – and a simple miracle cleaned each paper sheet after it was filled. Another kept the Earthside typewriter in good repair. There were still in-person appointments, of course, but they were spaced out enough that the angels in question could simply use the main entrance.

Over the centuries, Raphael had given Azazel no end of grief for not updating his wardrobe in a timely fashion. Azazel had paid Raphael back with interest over not updating the Remington 2 with more modern typewriters nor a computer. Carving the mandala by hand into metal was enough of a hassle that Raphael took the ribbing.

It also had other advantages: when Azazel banged into his office without knocking, Heaven had neither eyes nor ears on it. 

“Azazel? What the Hell? Do you have any idea how danger--”

The end of his sentence was interrupted by Azazel grabbing him by the lapels and slamming him against the wall between the ficus and the schefflera. Azazel let go of his suit with one hand and buried it in Raphael’s hair. That wasn’t unusual per se, Raphael had finally given up on the entire concept of “short hair” because Azazel kept miracling it long--

Azazel pressed his mouth against Raphael’s.

Oh. Kissing. _Oh._

It was far more imperious than Raphael had expected, pressure interspersed with biting, but still good enough the angel’s eyes slid closed. He could feel it everywhere, a tingling contrast with the pressure of Azazel pinning him to the wall. 

Azazel let go.

“I,” Raphael panted, tilting his head up. Azazel made a frustrated noise and pressed his mouth to Raphael’s throat, continuing with the biting and adding sucking to the repertoire. Some part of Raphael was vaguely embarrassed by how quickly the demon was arousing him. His knees felt like he had a few more joints than there should be. “I thought-- kissing was against the rules.”

“Hang the rules,” Azazel growled into Raphael’s neck “You need to Fall.”

His arousal response halted instantly. “Wait, what?” Reality warped and he tumbled backwards, naked, onto his own bed.

“Make an effort,” Azazel ordered, “and I’ll pick the opposite.”

Raphael pushed himself back, most decidedly not making an effort, and pulled the duvet up to cover the smooth skin between his legs for good measure. Not that he thought sex with Azazel _would_ be anything the Almighty would object to, at least under non-coercive circumstances.

“You need to Fall,” Azazel repeated, something desperate in his voice that had nothing to do with passion. “This is the fastest way to get there, but if you want to try striking Gabriel in the face first, I’m not averse--”

“What are you talking about?” Raphael demanded so forcefully the windows rattled with the bass. Raphael cleared his throat. A snap of his fingers and he was back in his office-hours suit. 

“We’ve only got eleven years till the end. If you’re an archangel when Armageddon starts, Hell won’t just kill you. They’ll make it take centuries. But,” Azazel’s voice turned beseeching, and he slid onto the bed, “I _did_ convert seven angels. I’m no Duke or Prince, but I’m not entirely without reputation. If you’re a demon, my demon, no one would dare to touch you. You’d be entirely safe. Well, from Hell at least. And they’d hardly expect anything supervisory from a raw recruit. You could do as you liked, when you liked, and the consequences would fall on you and you alone.”

Raphael would be lying if he said there wasn’t part of him that wanted to close his eyes and let Azazel have his way.

Raphael rolled off the bed to stand, to move, to--

He knew he was slated for kicking off the battle of Armageddon, sounding the trumpet and all that. He had always imagined that would involve Metatron relaying the Word and then carrying out those instructions. It was possible that this was it instead: getting the information from Azazel and warning Heaven. Except-- 

For humans and their eighty-year lifespans, eleven years was a laughably short time to prepare something of that magnitude. For angels, with eternal lifespans, it was inconceivably short. Especially with Raphael doing double-duty here on Earth. More of his duties would have to be given to Khizir and she’d have to be trained to them; there would be at least one angel in midheaven sounding the warning and another angelic presence on Earth marking allied humans (a significant angelic presence if they had only eleven years to audit all of humanity); someone would have to resurrect the two prophets under the altar and there hadn’t even been deliberations on the selection. Preparing for Armageddon was a significant logistical output for more departments than just Uriel’s manufacturing and Michael’s strategy and drills. 

Even if all the work was piled on Gabriel’s people, Raphael’s department would have to cover Gabriel’s duty roster to pick up the slack. It would require an adjustment to every billet in the department. He should have been informed by Metatron, or at least Michael.

Unless--

Unless what, Raphael had no idea. 

“Are you certain it was the Antichrist you saw?” Raphael demanded, halting and turning to Azazel.

“What do you mean, am I certain? Of course I’m certain.” Azazel’s voice was disdainful. “I mean, he didn’t have ‘hoofiwoofkins’ or anything, but two Dukes of Hell and a Prince verified his identity.”

“How?”

“In person and through the radio. Why does that--”

“No, no.” Raphael waved his hand. “How is he the Son of Satan? To get a mortal human body through to Hell you’d need an angel. How did Hell pull it off on its own?”

Azazel blinked. “Are you telling me this is the first you’ve heard of this?”

“Yeah,” Raphael said, holding his hands out to the sides. “Would’ve told you, otherwise.” He hadn’t really gotten to the “what to do about Azazel at Armageddon” part of the plan yet. Finding out there was a hard deadline attached would certainly have moved it up on the priority list.

“But you’re an _archangel_,” Azazel protested.

“Yeah!” Raphael repeated. “Which means--” He’d said to Khizir that if he had Azazel, it was possible Hell had a man in Heaven. He’d meant it as a lie, but apparently he’d been right. “Hell cannot start Armageddon unilaterally.”

“Hell does not bow to the whims of the Almighty.” Azazel’s voice as positively haughty. He even squared his shoulders and lifted his jaw like a royal.

“It isn’t about that, hellfire.” Raphael’s hands moved, sketching his understanding into the air. “Listen, there are ten million each of angel and demon. Well, minus your seven, but a seven-man advantage isn’t going to change anything. If we’re going at it on our own, it’s going to be a stalemate. It’ll just go on bloody year after bloody year, with humans caught in the middle until there’s none of them left. We have to stop this!”

“I _can’t_!”

“You must!”

Azazel scrambled off the bed, his black eyes wild. “I can’t, and neither can you! Isn’t this the divine plan, six thousand years and it all goes up in smoke?”

Raphael pressed forward, unrelenting. “Six thousand years from what, exactly? From the creation of the Earth? Adam? Eve? Does anyone know for sure? And while we’re on that topic, is it six thousand years our time or six thousand years the Almighty’s time? Thousand years is a day for God, so that’d put us, what? Two billion of our years, a million or so over. Almost at the end of the sun’s lifespan at that point. Sun will turn red, massive earthquakes, the oceans will boil, Moon’ll probably explode, meteors crashing down-- any of this sound familiar?”

Azazel was still backing away. “You can’t possibly be suggesting Armageddon will be some sort of-- naturally occurring celestial phenomena.”

“I don’t know,” Raphael admitted. He held up his hand. “I only know two things about the end times. One, only the Almighty knows the day and the hour. Two, I’m the messenger for it. And as that messenger, I am telling you, someone has grabbed the Great Plan and made a wrong turn at Albuquerque.” 

“I don’t know what that means,” Azazel said. Raphael grabbed the demon’s wrists to keep him from backing out the door. 

“You know enough. If you won’t do it for humanity, then do it for yourself. There won’t be old bookshops, sushi, gravlax with dill sauce, small antique shops, _Daily Telegraph_ crosswords, interesting little restaurants where they know you. No Albert Hall, and,” Raphael paused, scraping the bottom of the barrel of Azazel’s interests, “no Regency silver snuffboxes. Not if my lot and yours get humanity killed by firing off early.” 

Azazel made a wretched noise and pulled his wrists free of Raphael’s grip. Raphael’s apartment had similarities to Heaven – sleek lines, plenty of open spaces, easy to clean and kept clean – just as Azazel’s place was cluttered and barely-contained chaos. There was plenty of room for Azazel to fret. 

“Even if I did want to help you, and I don’t, what is there to do? The Antichrist is already _born_. It’s too late. He can warp reality at will. We can refuse all we like, it won’t matter. As soon as he says it’s time, it’s time.”

Raphael didn’t need to breathe but he held his breath anyway. He needed to think, he needed a plan--

“What if he doesn’t?” he blurted.

“He’s the Son of Satan, have you completely-- I don’t know why I’m talking to you.” Azazel turned to leave again, and Raphael caught him.

“It’s not genetic,” Raphael babbled as much as argued. “It can’t be. Angels and demons were created the same. If it was all genes, or what passes for genes with us, we’d all have Fallen or all stayed holy. We have a _kind_ of free will. Not as much as humans, but we have the right to choose. And this Antichrist is half-human, so he’s going to have even more choice than we do. If he’s a kid he’s still moldable. We just have to make sure we mold him the right way – to call this off.”

“You’re entirely certain this would work?” Azazel asked.

“On my professional responsibility as the archangel in charge of young people, yes,” Raphael confirmed solemnly. He released Azazel’s arm. “This entire thing is in my wheelhouse and you know it, hellfire.”

Azazel made another wretched noise, but this one was laced with frustration. “You are-- entirely too stubborn when you believe you are right.”

“I am right and you know it. If you were in my rubbish any deeper, you’d be nailing ninety-five reasons Heaven is wrong to their door. You can’t back out now.”

Azazel was very many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them.

“He was _yours_?! Hastur gave me a _medal_, not a commendation, a _medal_ and I had to, to, to prevaricate my way through an acceptance speech when I didn’t even know who Luther was!”

Raphael felt a smile curl his mouth against his will. “I didn’t think Hell gave out medals for trying to bring humans ‘round to a less materialistic form of worship.”

“You sowed dissent in the Church,” Azazel’s voice was still wretched, but the frustration had upgraded to a sort of fond exasperation. Forgiveness was on the horizon. 

“Church needed a little dissent. Now are you in or not?”

Azazel sighed, his round shoulders slumping in defeat. “Fine. I suppose you’ll be telling Heaven you’re thwarting my evil attempts to bring the Antichrist round to Hell’s way of thinking?”

Raphael pulled back his sleeve. There were two pale scars on each arm, one circling his wrist and the other farther down his forearm. He only revealed the top scar, but Azazel knew the lower scar was there. 

In 1933, before the opening of Dachau, Gabriel and Michael had chained Raphael to his old office in Heaven “for his own good.” They’d said they were worried he’d actively resist the Nazis and end up Fallen as a result. They had sent lesser angels down to Earth in Raphael’s place with instructions not to say a word to Azazel. Azazel had concluded Heaven had killed or incarcerated his archangel. To teach them the depth of their mistake, Azazel had went right back to manipulating his adversaries into Falling. Losing four angels in twelve years had certainly lent weight to Khizir’s protest that only Raf was immune to Azazel’s mental terrorism.

Raphael couldn’t end up chained to his office again. This was too important.

“I’m not telling Heaven a thing,” Raphael said. Normally he would seal this with a handshake, but Azazel had unintentionally discovered a more pleasant method was safe. Raphael stepped forward to grasp both his demon’s hands. He tilted his head and pressed his mouth to Azazel’s. This kiss was soft, sweet, like he’d imagined it would be. It warmed him all the way to his extremities.

* * *


	12. Interlude

Time reset as predicted and was re-written as before. Once again, Crowley decided to follow Raphael’s plan.


	13. Wednesday, Before the Second Amended End

Adam didn’t have dreams. Well, he did, of course, but not the kind in movies or that kids talked about in school. He didn’t dream of going naked to school or spiders or circuses or flying.

He dreamed of the Archangel Gabriel, for as long as he could remember. Sometimes he dreamed from Gabriel’s perspective, like memories: the Rebellion in Heaven, the wickedness of Sodom, of the Nephilim – beings with an angel’s power and a human’s savagery, who had ruled Man like demi-gods until the Flood washed them all away. Other times he dreamed of the future: of fighting by Gabriel’s side, of destroying the demons, of proving that Order and Discipline were to be preferred over unchecked independence, of the death of mankind that would result. Other times, he dreamed in the present: lessons in Enochian and angelic magic, in harnessing his powers, of the importance of his task and the insignificance of Man.

His parents didn’t understand, of course. Like the British against Joan of Arc, they had persecuted him – diagnoses of madness instead of accusations of witchcraft, pills and therapists instead of tortures and inquisitors. Just as Gabriel (the real Gabriel, not the piano teacher he pretended to be around Adam’s parents) had said. And like Joan of Arc, Adam had emerged from that persecution whole of purpose and faith. The Son of Satan had become a saint, and this dog before him was proof.

Gabriel had prophesied that Hell would send him a guardian, a monstrous dog to protect him and birth his powers into fullness. And here the Hellhound was, glowing red eyes and savage teeth. Waiting to be named.

“Demonsbane,” Adam said. The dog shifted, changing into a great wolfhound, though the wolves this hound would hunt weren’t mere animals.

As the Hellhound shifted, so did he, the underpinnings of reality wakening in his consciousness. Joan had picked Charles out of a crowd. He could make Charles live again. 

Guided by the Archangel Gabriel, not Saint Michael, and with the armies of Heaven instead of the French, he would bring about a restoration for all, not just France.

Demonsbane howled.

* * *


	14. The Second Amended End

The Antichrist snapped his fingers on Gabriel’s orders and Aziraphale _died_. No blood, no trauma, just glassy eyes and his corporation dropping to the ground like Sandalphon’s had.

Khizir took a deep breath. It looked like she was up. The Horsemen were watching the scene mutely, waiting for the Antichrist’s command, and the Antichrist was waiting for Gabriel’s. 

“Gabriel, sir,” Khizir said, stepping forward as unthreateningly as she could. Her voice only trembled a bit on the I. “I understand that you want things settled with Hell, I do. We all do. Whether God is fit to rule Heaven is a very important question, but playing with time isn’t the way to prove your point. If the paradox isn’t closed, it’ll force time into a loop that will destroy everything the Almighty has ever created. You have to help us stop this.”

“Go back to Heaven, Khizir, this doesn’t concern you,” Gabriel said.

“As one of the people living in creation, yes, sir, it does,” Khizir argued. She stepped forward another precious step. She had no idea what she’d do when she got to Gabriel and his half-human child-weapon. “Starting Armageddon early, manipulating the Antichrist into siding with Heaven, changing time – we’re _Heaven_. We’re not supposed to cheat, and if we win by acting like Hell: are we any different? What does it matter if we win the war if we lose everything that we are in the process?”

“That’s a neat trick,” Gabriel said grimly. “It’s your mouth moving, but Raphael’s voice is coming out.”

“Because she’s right,” Raphael said, dropping down onto the tarmac. The Hellhound was nowhere to be seen. There wasn’t even blood on his suit. “I’ll never consent to helping you meddle with time. If even one of the other archangels dies in the fighting, you won’t be able to send the note back to tell yourself to change things. Time will rewrite itself over and over again until everyone and everything dies. We may have had this exact conversation already. We wouldn’t remember--”

“Aziraphale!” It was Raphael’s voice, but coarsened and desperate. 

“GIVE THE COMMAND,” Death intoned, “AND I WILL END THEIR INTERFERENCE FOR GOOD.”

The other Raphael was dressed like a failed rockstar in leather with Victorian glasses and a ridiculous haircut. The ground beneath him was fading back from red to black – the demon version of himself Raf had told her about. Azazel stood next to him, drawing his sword, a sword he shouldn’t have, the holy blade corrupted into night-black steel edged in frost. If the demon-Raphael saw any of them, he gave no indication. He made straight for what was left of Aziraphale, checking the corpse for life and pleading brokenly for the answer to be different. Gabriel’s expression was one of horror. 

The Antichrist nodded.

* * *


	15. Interlude

Time was again reset, and Gabriel again sent back his note, bringing the total number of re-writes to four.


	16. Wednesday, Before the Amended End

Plan A had tanked on every possible level. Three o’clock had come and passed with no Hellhound. Azazel had confirmed with Hell that the dog had been released, so it wasn’t that the fault was in the delivery. They simply had the wrong boy. Even Azazel’s “entertainment” had been rubbish, though granted, that part of Plan A failing was a surprise only to Azazel. “Fun.” Rubbish. Azazel would have been better off with proper magic.

Warlock had to be a decoy. Azazel was incandescent with fury over the insult that Hell would dare to use him as a patsy, like some common imp with no service record. Raphael was more concerned with why Hell thought Azazel was the one to use to throw Heaven off the track. If they suspected--

If they suspected, Azazel was in danger because of Raphael. 

Not that it would matter for long with the Antichrist out of pocket. They had been mentoring the wrong child for eleven years, and who knew what the actual boy would choose.

If the Antichrist wouldn’t be calling this mistaken Armageddon to a halt, then Heaven had to. 

Plan B didn’t have any better prospects than Plan A, and God knew Raphael had no ideas how Plan C (find the actual Antichrist and convince _him_ to call off Armageddon) was ever going to get off the ground. 

Outside the main complex, Heaven was bustling. Uriel’s people had been churning out weapons as fast as they could make them for the past eleven years, starting just after Raphael had found out. Back channel communication had been confirmed, which had made secrecy all the more imperative. Michael’s people were leading those from the three other departments in last-minute drills. Raphael’s people were healers and observers. Active combat wasn’t their role beyond basic self-defense. Almost his entire section had been converted to hospital facilities, and the surveillance coverage of Earth had been doubled. Khizir hated it, so vehemently so that he’d had to tell her the truth about his mentoring of Warlock to keep her from personally evicting Uriel’s renovation crews.

Raphael found Gabriel in his office. His desk was piled high with Michael’s maps and plans. He looked like Azazel after eating chilled prinsesstarta. 

“Raphael,” Gabriel said brightly, with a thousand-dollar smile. He stood with his arms out, doubtless more out of respect for Raphael’s place in the hierarchy than Raphael himself. “You’re back, good. I hope you’ve been practicing your Reveille.”

“No,” Raphael said. Gabriel’s smile dulled.

“Well, I’m sure it’s like swinging a sword. You never really forget.”

“Never was one for blades, you know that.” Raphael was the only archangel without a bladed weapon – a quarterstaff, wrapped in a serpent. More defensive than offensive, very nearly ornamental. Raphael slid the office door closed behind him. If Gabriel was trying to save face, he’d be utterly intractable.

“Could you not?” Gabriel’s shallow friendliness disappeared. “Whatever it is you’re about to do, or say, or-- One thing. One thing without you being difficult, is that too much to ask?”

“Yeah,” Raphael agreed. “You need to call this off.”

“For the love of--”

“What? God?” Raphael demanded. He talked over Gabriel’s irritated affirmative. “Because I don’t see a whole lot of divine participation in this. Just you and the others.” _And Hell_, Raphael did not say, because until he knew who to silence he didn’t dare tell anyone other than Khizir that Azazel had informed.

“Metatron has approved things every step of the way,” Gabriel said.

“And did he actually inquire up top before signing off? If he did, where are his pets?”

“I don’t have time for this. Just show up to the party, shut your stupid mouth, and blow your trumpet. It’s all you have to do.” Gabriel sat back down in his chair and pulled a map from the pile.

“Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jonah, Elijah, Elisha, Zedekiah, Zephaniah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah,” Raphael named them off as he approached Gabriel’s desk, “Jesus, Peter, Paul. Every time, every single judgment event, Metatron had some human pet running around telling anyone who would listen and everyone who wouldn’t. Every single time. For this one there are supposed to be a _minimum_ of two, raised from the dead in some way and backed by an angel in midheaven. Where are they and their angel? Where’s the angel – or angels, since you haven’t even started yet – marking the allied humans for salvation?”

“The Almighty has not seen fit to declare a significant angelic presence on Earth,” Gabriel said tightly.

“Why not?”

“It’s not my place or yours to question the Almighty,” Gabriel said tightly. 

“Seemed to work for the Bereans. Noble-minded, I think was the term used.”

Gabriel’s smile was utterly without warmth and he didn’t look up from his page.

“Don’t you dare quote some mortal human mouthpiece to me. I’m the Archangel fucking Gabriel.”

Raphael placed both hands on Gabriel’s desk and leaned over it. “‘Let God be found true, though every angel be found a liar.’ Well, he didn’t say angel, but: it’s in the spirit of the thing.” It was the same prophet Raphael had paraphrased before, and Gabriel knew it.

The other archangel looked up. His eyes were bright purple, his jaw set, mouth in a thin line.

“Get out of my office.”

“Not until you call this off. This isn’t the right time.”

“The Anti-christ has been born, and the horsemen are being summoned. It’s time.”

“Oh yes, the parts Heaven and Hell are responsible for are ticking along nicely. It’s the parts God’s supposed to be doing but isn’t that are worrying me. Because this? Looks a lot like you care more about going forward with _your_ interpretation of how God’s will should be done and proving yourself right than about what God’s will actually _is_.”

Gabriel moved faster than Raphael had ever seen, papers flying everywhere. The side of Raphael’s face went numb and then hot, his ears ringing. His back hit the wall hard enough he heard the glass window splinter. Gabriel had him by the lapels.

“Pride,” Raphael lengthened the vowels for emphasis even though pain was radiating outward in spikes from his spine and his face ached. He could taste ichor in his mouth. “Wrath. You keep this up, you’re going to Fall.”

“The only one in this room who should be Fallen is you,” Gabriel said coldly.

“Go ahead.” Raphael smiled even though it made the pain in his lip worse. He felt oddly giddy, almost weightless – the arrow loosed from the bow. He had never felt more certain about anything in his long, long life. “See if it takes.”

Gabriel’s door opened. Raphael was shoved so hard he was nearly thrown. He took the fall as a roll, hard stone tile under his palms and knees. His hair had come loose and hung around his face.

Gabriel’s door slammed shut. So much for Plan B.

* * *


	17. The Third Amended End

“Cigarettes. Now.” 

There were many, many ways that Crowley had been greeted by Ligur over the centuries, but this one was new.

Hastur was making a noise somewhere between a screech and utter disbelief. 

“No, he did it, the son of a bitch actually did it, now _pay up_,” Ligur continued. He held his hand out and made a grabby gesture. Azazel wore the same expression Aziraphale wore when he’d maneuvered Crowley into something the demon wasn’t completely sold on.

“Never bet against me, my dear, never,” Azazel said to Hastur, taking Crowley by the arm and leading him by the dukes. “Now if you’ll excuse me, he’s fresh out of grace. Little top-up with Hellfire and he’ll be right as rain, you understand….”

Hastur was too busy being impressed that Azazel had landed a crippling blow on Heaven five minutes before the battle had even started to respond. Ligur was too busy seizing the chance to be in charge of the cigarette box himself, instead of having them doled out one-by-one. 

Crowley hadn’t been in Hell before the last Armageddon. It was complete chaos, people shoving by and shouting at each other, the air filled with the clang of weapons and various attempts at psyching themselves up. Raphael hadn’t been wrong about angelic stock being built for a purpose, and the unused but still very present administrative part of Crowley’s brain bristled at how uncoordinated it all was. Hell had been so focused on becoming stronger and more vicious that they’d spent no time on becoming better _organized_. But then, these were the same lot who hadn’t sealed the hospital before the most important birth in millennia.

They stopped at the first gout of Hellfire they saw between the main entrance and the secondary door. Crowley stepped inside. Hellfire was the only good part about Hell, blissful heat that soaked into every ounce of muscle. Crowley tilted his head back, letting the fresh heat bank the pitiful flame in his gut and letting it burn through his veins. He spread his hands, letting it pour into him, warm, warm, warm--

The flame was gone, expended. Azazel was staring at him with his mouth slightly open.

“What?” Crowley demanded.

“That was an _entire font of Hellfire_.”

Crowley stepped out. “Are you really going to have a go at me for gluttony? Seriously?” 

“That’s not--” Azazel sighed with impatience as they started walking toward one of the secondary exits. “With that kind of spell capacity you could accomplish enough to be made a Duke. Prince, if you played your cards right and something happened to occur to one of the others.”

“I don’t want to play my cards right,” Crowley snapped. Aziraphale as a true believer made a sort of sense – the angel desperately wanted to be Right and Good, and getting chucked out of Heaven for no cause would certainly put a hiccup in that. It was also bloody annoying now that they were working for the same company, as it were. “I don’t want to run Hell, I didn’t even want to be part of--” Crowley bit off his words in a sibilant hiss. Hell wasn’t the place for this conversation. Up until seven months ago, his own side hadn’t been an option. It was Heaven or Hell, and God didn’t want him. He’d made it work. 

Then he’d had everything he did want, plants and movies and people to talk to. No to-do list to work through. No bosses to appease who made the exact same mistakes as Heaven, right down to not listening. He’d had a happy angel who loved him, demon and all, a happy angel in his bed, even. Then bloody Gabriel-- 

There was no one at the secondary exit, a battered and rotting wooden door. Everyone was massing up for Dagon’s inspirational speech.

“Listen,” Azazel said. “This isn’t going to work.”

Unbelievable.

“We’re not killing an eleven year-old right out of the gate,” Crowley argued. 

“Oh, don’t give me that. I understand, I do. They get to you, with their stubbornness and pretty speeches, more pained by suffering than you ever remember the Almighty being and willing to use any method to stop it. Even doing good under a demon’s numbers so Heaven won’t see. Pretty soon you’re doing things you know you shouldn’t, taking foolish risks that will get you an eternity in the darkest pit if you’re caught, just to make them happy. Keep them safe.” Azazel blinked and glanced down briefly before returning to holding Crowley’s gaze, his manipulation cutting far too close to real honesty. 

“They wade through the worst in humanity dispensing their blessings and asking people to be kinder to each other. But you and I know how little effort creating that worst takes. Most of the time we don’t have to do anything at all. 

“You heard the officer in Tadfield,” Azazel continued, “Making golems out of mud and enochian spellcraft in his room, a dog named Demonsbane. He’s been groomed by Gabriel for this his entire life. Your Angel isn’t going to get anywhere against that. He _hasn’t_, if we’ve done this before. We need to do what we _wouldn’t_ have done before, or this all goes poof, your Aziraphale included.”

Crowley opened is mouth to argue that that sort of thinking could just as easily be what they’d done before, that Azazel’s plan had just as much chances of having been a failure as Raphael’s--

– except--

\--did it really have the same chances? Was it _just_ as likely he’d agree with Azazel, or was it more likely he’d dig in his heels? Aziraphale _was_ stubborn and he _did_ get his way most of the time, Azazel was right about that, as much as Crowley hated to admit it. Crowley had to really insist, usually more than once, for the angel to back down – even in matters of life and death. Talking to the boy was what Aziraphale wanted to do, even if Raphael had given voice to the plan.

His hesitance must have shown on his face, because Azazel doubled down in the softest, most beseeching voice.

“You won’t even have to do the dirty work. I’ll take care of everything. You just have to distract him long enough for me to get close.” His face – upturned nose, soft mouth beneath his puffy-white-cloud hair – was the very picture of wide-eyed pouting. The black eyes didn’t hamper him at all. 

“All right,” Crowley capitulated. If he was to be a distraction, they needed to get the Hellhound out of the way. They’d run into Azazel and Raphael on the way to Tadfield. Hell hadn’t discovered the switched baby by then. Which meant Hastur and Ligur shouldn’t have come for Azazel at all. “Did Raphael by any chance give you any holy water ages ago?”

Azazel blinked. “You’re a demon, why would you-- You really are impossible. Yes, he did.”

“Where is it?”

“In the fire safe in my basement,” Azazel said primly, “but we don’t have time to go back for it.”

“Just describe it. Container, what the safe looks like, where your place is.” Without Heaven’s asceticism to appease, Azazel wouldn’t have needed a bookshop as a cover for owning books. He’d just own them, a bold display of Covetousness that Hell would applaud. Azazel provided the requested information with skepticism, but enough that Crowley was able to build a picture in his head. Space was curved, and Hell was a little deeper inside that curve. This would have been a lot harder in Heaven.

It wasn’t exactly a wormhole, but it was a little push there, a pinch there, and--

The metal canteen appeared in Crowley’s hand. Azazel stepped backward even though the lid was rusted shut. There hadn’t been gloves or tongs in the safe, damn it all to-- well. 

Crowley held his breath. Cracking the lid wasn’t a problem for demonic strength, but he could _not_ spill. 

That would take care of the Hellhound. 

“Distraction, distraction,” Crowley repeated, thinking aloud. What would distract an all-powerful entity capable of warping reality, an enemy intent on destroying the world and everything in it, while his partner and whatever he had for a weapon put together the kill-shot? Oh. He had it. 

The thought made him smile. Humans really were the most brilliant.

“What?” Azazel asked.

“Dance-off to save the universe,” Crowley explained. “It’ll work, trust me. Seen it before.”

“Did they remove part of your brain when you Fell?” Azazel demanded.

“The line is, ‘I’m going to die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy.’” Crowley opened the door and stepped through.

It was wonderfully warm compared to the cold damp of Hell, even if it was still colder than Crowley preferred. The Meggido base looked eerily similar to Tadfield, right down to the guards at the gate not letting Book Girl inside. Gabriel’s presence with Adam was new, but not unexpected. Adam looked different, too, like a proper angel, in a slate-gray suit and professional haircut. War was wielding a primitive knife made of some kind of jaw-bone instead of a sword.

The Hellhound – wearing an Irish Wolfhound skin – jumped at him immediately. Crowley held his breath, dumped the holy water, and leaped away. He used a wingbeat to carry him up and back from the spray. The Hellhound yelped, crying like a real dog as it melted. 

Crowley landed and snapped his fingers to open the gate and hypnotize the guards.

“I don’t believe it,” Gabriel snarled simultaneously. “Six _thousand years_ of your mouth and your attitude and your sloppiness, and you Fall anyway.” His halberd appeared out of the aether, lightning crackling around it.

Shit. Fuck. Shit. He hadn’t thought about Gabriel not knowing there were two of them.

Crowley ran to the side, any side, just away, zig-zagging as lighting struck behind him. Gabriel was there, suddenly, and the halberd’s shaft caught him in the ribs. Crowley let the momentum take him, rolling with it, and the blade sliced hot fire from knee to ankle. Crowley scrambled, lurching up from a crawl to something somewhere between a hobble and a run. 

The halberd caught him in the back, hard enough to numb him from the legs down, and pain enough to white out his vision.

The deathblow didn’t come. Metal was ringing on metal in the air, and Aziraphale was babbling at him. Crowley looked up.

Raphael was fighting with Gabriel and-- Khizir. (He remembered their names, every one, not one of his people had Fallen but him, and wasn’t that an accomplishment?) Raphael wasn’t doing a terribly better job than Crowley had, but he at least had something other than flesh to take the blows with. Khizir’s dagger wasn’t doing much damage to an archangel, but it was enough distraction that Gabriel hadn’t taken Raphael’s head off. Crowley tried to stand. His legs didn’t move, but the pain intensified enough that he couldn’t make any sound in his scream. The sand around him was a dark red. 

Azazel was behind the Antichrist, who was watching one Raphael fighting and the other dying. The sword that wasn’t War’s took Adam square in the chest, the blade coated in blood and protruding from his ribs.

His face barely changed. He stared at the blade for a mute second. Adam snapped his fingers and Azazel died.

Crowley pulled them out of time. He was light-headed, and the sands here were already turning red.

Khizir lowered her dagger to stare.

“What? How?” Book Girl turned in a useless circle.

“Holy fire, angel, before I bleed out.”

He could smell his own flesh searing, burnt steak and hot scales. He almost lost control of time, but he didn’t dare drop in yet. He knew what it felt like to outlive Aziraphale. With his voice crippled, his screaming hadn’t accomplished anything.

“Believe me,” he rasped aloud. “You don’t want to be standing in front of a grieving archangel.”

Two more breaths, and Crowley let go.

The base looked like it had been smashed by a giant fist. The buildings were leveled. War, Pollution, and Famine were lying on the ground like shattered dolls. Azazel’s sword lay in pieces on the ground. Gabriel had a broken nose. He was bleeding from his eyes and ears as well, as he pushed himself up off the buckled tarmac. 

Raphael was weeping, bent over Azazel’s body, one shaking hand petting his white hair uselessly.

Crowley knew better than anyone that Raphael was down for the count. He’d gone to drink in a bar and wait for death, himself. 

Adam was utterly unharmed. 

“Two birds, one stone,” Adam said. He raised his hand.

Aziraphale.

Crowley’s legs wouldn’t work but his wings were fine. One teleport was followed instantly by another.

The humans called it Cygnus X-3. 

To Crowley, it would always be Mariel’s grave. 

Crowley couldn’t see him. He knew the angel was there, wings outstretched in a down-beat that would never fall. Adam’s hand was outstretched for a snap that would never come. The time dilation at the event horizon was worse than even the first creative day’s, a nanosecond stretching out into an eternity as they were pulled in. The signal to cast the spell had left one part of his brain, but it would never reach the other. For Mariel, for Adam, it was a horror that would never end.

For Crowley, the thought with no end was knowing that Adam could’t warp reality if he couldn’t think, and that Aziraphale was safe.

* * *

Aziraphale could feel his chest heaving from despair. 

Had Crowley teleported with no destination in mind, scattering himself in the aether? Or had he taken Adam somewhere the boy could not survive, reality-warping powers or no?

If the Antichrist couldn’t survive, neither could Crowley. Either way, he wasn’t coming back. And Adam was dead. Apocalypse averted, but at such a higher cost. And time-- Time was still broken.

Gabriel’s face was contorted in horror and anger.

Aziraphale picked up a shattered piece of Raphael’s staff and held it like a blade. He stood between the two archangels. Khizir stood beside him with her dagger.

“Get out of the way, both of you,” Gabriel said.

“This is your fault,” Aziraphale said. He could hear his voice shake, he’d never been one for confrontation, but he pressed on. “You-- you altered time and-- It’s going to all fall apart, angels and all, if you don’t fix this. You need to write a note to yourself telling yourself to stop. Please.”

“Move aside,” Gabriel ordered again. Lightning was crackling around his arms. “I don’t want to kill the two of you.” He didn’t say he didn’t want to kill anyone. Aziraphale knew. Gabriel had wanted to kill him for stopping Armageddon in the correct timeline, and he didn’t have the history with Gabriel that Raphael had. 

“Then you’re going to have to go through us,” Khizir said, with really more bravado than Aziraphale thought was strictly necessary. 

“Suit yourselves.” The lightning blast hit Khizir square in the chest and rocketed her to the side like a rag doll. Gabriel staggered. But then, he’d been the closest to Raphael, and would have taken the brunt of the scream. 

Aziraphale stood his ground. He twisted, letting the shaft of the halberd fall on his shoulders, arm, and sides, but never his sword arm. He could simply wrench the weapon from Gabriel’s grip, he had the physical strength for it, but that was likely to make the archangel default to sorcery. Aziraphale did all right with minor miracles and even the occasional major one, but he didn’t have Crowley’s power or off-the-cuff creativity. Aziraphale used the makeshift sword to deflect the blows when Gabriel struck with the blade of his polearm. 

Aziraphale refused to be drawn away from Raphael. He hoped that the sharp cries Aziraphale let out when the shaft struck true would snap Gabriel out of it, or at least make him see what he was doing was wrong. He tried to explain in between. Nothing seemed to be working. 

Khizir’s dagger point appeared between Gabriel’s eyes. 

Gabriel reached back to grab the handle-- his chest wide open.

He had no choice. If Gabriel killed Raphael, there would be no one to pull a message outside time, no one to stop the future, and then there’d be no future for anyone.

Aziraphale bit his lip, and swung with the arm he’d protected, driving the broken staff as deeply into Gabriel’s chest as he could. An archangel’s weapon, on top of all the previous trauma. Gabriel dropped, and Khizir dropped as well. Most of her body was blackened and burnt. Her eyes were glassy.

The world blurred and his eyes were burning. Aziraphale sobbed. He’d never killed anything before. It was worse than he’d ever imagined.

He pulled Khizir’s dagger from Gabriel’s head. He started sawing through the corpse’s neck. It wasn’t a note, but it would have to do. 

Khizir’s distress had snapped Raphael out of it. His subordinate was half-laying in his lap and the archangel’s other hand was glowing with golden healing light. Wasting holy power he’d need, if how weak Crowley had been after the first time was any indication.

“No!” Aziraphale pulled his wrist away and shoved the head into his hand. “It won’t matter if history resets itself. We have to save _time_ or she’s dead anyway.”

The light of life was fading from Khizir’s eyes, and Raphael’s were dark with despair. But the archangel bit his lip and nodded.

“You’re right,” Raphael choked out. “I will. I promise.” Aziraphale heard wings flutter. The archangel and his grisly burden were gone, doubtless to the galactic core.

Aziraphale could hear Anathema crawling her way out of the shattered main building. It didn’t matter. It wouldn’t. His bookshop was gone, Crowley was dead, Adam was dead, Gabriel was dead at his own hand, and Khizir, who he’d barely met but still grieved on principle. Even he was dead, as Azazel. 

He covered his face in his hands and keened.

* * *


	18. Seven Months After the End

The ring of molten star-stuff around the Milky Way’s galactic center was white at the edge of the event horizon. It faded into pink, then purple, and then a dark blue. Other stars were scattered inside the mammoth accretion disk, red giants and supergiants that could swallow Sol whole without so much as a solar flare.

Earth was so insignificant, a speck floating around another speck. The life-forms on it were even smaller. Dust on the scales.

Gabriel could understand how the Antichrist could lack perspective. Humans were simple, stupid, and entirely too certain of their own importance. Aziraphale and Crowley, on the other hand, should have known better. They had helped build the universe, had seen the awe of Heaven. They should have understood humanity was acceptable collateral damage to answer once and for all the question of how Heaven should be run. 

But they didn’t know better, which presented a problem. The Great Plan’s portents and prophesies had passed. The door was closed. Trying to recreate the extensive timetable that had led to the events of Tadfield, well, it was impossible. Not without direct intervention from God, who seemed disinclined to participate.

Gabriel refused to accept that all Heaven and Hell’s work had been thwarted by the worst principality and most incompetent demon ever to disgrace God’s creation.

Gabriel couldn’t pull together a new Great Plan, but there was a chance he could salvage the old one. He couldn’t go back in time himself, of course. It would take four archangels’ worth of power to bend the laws of physics enough to send even a discorporated angel. There were only three archangels left. Sandalphon carried out the duties of an archangel, but his wings were white and he had only two sets of vocal cords. His skill at bringing Raphael’s defunct department into order didn’t give him stronger sorcery. 

The most Gabriel could do was send a note on no more than a half-ounce of paper, a word in the ear of his past self.

Gabriel had spent months detailing how everything had gone so wrong, reviewing surveillance files and charting cause and effect until even Sandalphon had been shooting him worried glances. 

It didn’t matter. Gabriel would only have one shot. He had to choose his target carefully. 

Aziraphale would misplace his head if it wasn’t attached to his corporation, by his own admission. He had come to Gabriel first about the swapped Antichrist and with his doubts about the war. Neither screamed “the idea man” to Gabriel.

Crowley, on the other hand-- Crowley had been the one to approach Aziraphale in almost every clip of surveillance they had.

The obvious answer was simply to erase Crowley from the narrative.

Not that “simply” was the correct word, per se. Even with his primary vocal cords scarred and his secondary and tertiary cords removed, Crowley was still a potent sorcerer. Gabriel had watched surveillance of the demon strolling across consecrated ground with nothing more than hot-foot, and Michael had sworn that the holy water hadn’t so much as caused him to steam. Separate from the immunity problem, Gabriel had seen Tadfield. One second, Crowley had been on the ground without glasses. Then the next he’d been standing two feet away from his previous position with the brat and Aziraphale next to him, a new pair of glasses on and braced for a fight. Something in that second had given that wretched child the idea to simply switch fathers.

The molecular movement trick, it had to be. Crowley had expanded it somehow, which made direct confrontation a problem. 

Gabriel needed to erase Crowley from the narrative without a fight.

He need to make certain Crowley was never sent to the Earth to go native in the first place.

Of course, convincing Hell to do anything was a difficult proposition. Impossible to do with only a note.

But an archangel would never be assigned lowly work planetside. If he could simply keep Crowley from Falling in the first place… It meant his alternative future self would have to deal with Raphael’s chaos-mongering and mood swings, but it would be worth it for Armageddon.

“Are you sure about this, Gabriel?” Sandalphon asked.

Gabriel could feel the galactic center pulling at him. He knew the other three angels could as well. If anything went wrong, they’d know what had happened to Mariel. 

“Yes.”

Gabriel placed the note in the center of their formation. The angels joined hands.

Meddling in time was forbidden. A temporal paradox could destroy the entire universe if the loop wasn’t closed. Gabriel had left instructions to ensure his alternative future self still set events in motion, but if his alternative self didn’t follow them, or if one of the other angels’ alternative future selves balked or interfered-- The four of them had decided it was a risk worth taking. It wasn’t like they couldn’t just create the universe all over again if they had to. The right way this time.

The angels sang. The song was ethereal and unnatural, grating on the ears and grinding in the bones. It was slick and snotty in their throats. The light that unfurled from nothingness was a purulent yellow. It circled the note in a shell that would have ignited any mortal who looked upon it. Even though there was no air in space, the shell still reeked of putrefaction somehow. 

Raphael – gold wings, no dark glasses, navy blue suit spattered in blood – appeared out of the aether. In his hands was Gabriel’s severed head, a puncture wound right between its eyes.

Gabriel shrieked. Uriel screamed. Michael blasphemed like a demon. The song stopped. The shell dissipated.

Raphael threw the head at Gabriel. Gabriel caught it on instinct and then shoved it towards Uriel.

“Shall we make a list of everything you did wrong, or do you just want the highlights?” Raphael demanded.

Uriel pushed the head at Michael, who held both hands up and let it float by him.

“I, uh, think we got it,” Gabriel said, watching his own head get caught in the gravity well and start floating toward the galactic core. His head. His own very dead head. 

“No, I don’t think you do. You nearly destroyed all of time and everything in it, angels included, rather than accept that this isn’t the time for Armageddon. You will, from this point forward, babysit humanity without a fuss until the sun explodes if that’s God’s timetable.”

Sandalphon swallowed and lifted his chin. “A severed head doesn’t make you the Word of God.”

“Excuse me,” Uriel said. “Can we? Just?” She gestured to herself, Michael, and Gabriel. “Quick conference, just need a minute.” She made beckoning gestures. Sandalphon moved with them, and Uriel held up her hand. “Not you.”

“Just a minute,” Michael said as well, holding up a hand to Sandalphon. Gabriel was outvoted at that point. He let Uriel drag him along, still watching over her shoulder as his head – his _head_ – continued to float against the backdrop of the accretion disk. His severed head. 

“Okay, look,” Uriel said quietly. “I know I’m normally all for keeping your head down and sticking to the plan. But that’s _Raphael_, back from the damned and feeling very well, thank you, carrying Gabriel’s head. I think that before we make any decisions, we should send Metatron upstairs for some confirmation. Because if the Almighty personally un-Felled Raphael and we ignore that, we are-- in so much trouble--”

“We’re already in trouble,” Michael hissed. “We weren’t supposed to be playing with time in the first place. I’ve watched a few human shows here and there, and they’re pretty certain you can create twins doing this timey-wimey stuff. If we’ve somehow-- created another Raphael, that isn’t a demon-- How are we going to explain this? There’s no way we can keep this a secret.”

“We can’t just kill him and hide the body!” Uriel whispered fiercely. “We don’t know if it was us or the Almighty behind this.”

Ohgodohalmightyohfuck. Gabriel could feel his chest constricting with panic. This was such a bad plan. They never should have begun this plan. It had all gone so wrong. There was no way to hide it. They were in so, so, so much trouble.

“Okay, okay,” Gabriel said. “Here’s-- Look. We come clean. Full transparency. We go straight to the First Choir, and we grovel like no one has ever grovelled before. We apologize, we beg, we cry. No shame. If Raphael is a divine messenger, that’s repentance. If we somehow did this, it’s still repentance, and maybe we all still have jobs tomorrow.”

Michael and Uriel chorused their approval for the plan. The Almighty was big on forgiveness, even if they’d been glossing over that bit with the humans lately. If Gabriel still had a job tomorrow he would have to amend that.

Michael cleared his throat.

“We’re going to check in with the Almighty now,” he told Raphael. “Just-- follow whenever you’re ready. No rush. Take your time. I’m sure there’s. You’re going to want your department back, obviously, of course, why wouldn’t you, so I’m sure you have preparations to make. Something. Certainly. Sandalphon.” Michael jerked his hand to indicate Sandalphon should follow them. They teleported away.

* * *

Raphael closed his eyes and tilted his head up. Outside time, he had told himself that he’d deliver his message, assure himself of Gabriel’s compliance, and then spread his wings and let the gravitational pull take him. The original plan had been to send Crowley and Aziraphale forward and back. He wasn’t supposed to exist in this time.

He didn’t want to exist like this alone.

But he wasn’t alone, now. Michael had handed him his job back. If he let gravity take him, Sandalphon would keep his department. 

Raphael felt his eyes burn, matching the burn of exhaustion in his limbs. The gravity well pulled the tears sideways off his cheeks and tugged at his hair. Without him to vent to, Khizir might have gotten herself thrown down in this timeline. If she hadn’t, she and Nanael would still be watchers. In either eventuality, Khizir hadn’t been his right hand and Nanael hadn’t been his left. It would all be so different.

He was still responsible. Just as he’d told Azazel, when Azazel had asked him to run if he was ever caught.

He could cut his hair now, if he liked. It would stay short.

He would never cut it again. 

“Oh, come now, my dear. Surely you know that the reward for a job well done is being handed another person’s work to finish.” 

Raphael opened his eyes. Aziraphale would have been reset along with everything else. He wouldn’t remember. He wouldn’t talk to Raphael that way. The archangel held his breath and turned around.

He could barely see Azazel against the dark of space, black on black, wings and clothes alike.

Raphael didn’t remember crossing the distance. Azazel was just in his arms, warm and soft and firm and _real_, grabbing Raphael back just as fiercely. Alive. Thank the Almighty. Alive. Hands in his hair, mouth on his, passionate and joyful and painfully, painfully wonderful. 

God was surprisingly good at bribery. Raphael would do anything to repay this favor.

Reality warped around them.

“Fuck! Jesus! Fuck! Balls! What the fuck?!” a man was shouting. 

Raphael looked up. He recognized the shape of the rooms, the narrow staircase. Azazel had taken them to his house. But of course, it wasn’t his house now. Raphael started laughing. The shouting man’s dinner had been interrupted by a filthy, blood-spattered angel and a ridiculously attractive demon, wings out and well on their way to making out, appearing out of thin air in the middle of his living room. 

“What the fuck is going on? What is happening?”

Azazel snapped his fingers. The man slumped to the ground, unconscious.

Raphael raised his eyebrow expectantly. Azazel made a little moue with his mouth, then relented and snapped his fingers again.

“You will wake up having had a lovely dream about whatever you love best,” Azazel said, “_after_ we’re finished with your dwelling.”

Raphael pressed his mouth back to Azazel’s, smiling so hard his face ached.

* * *

It was _entirely_ Crowley’s fault. Aziraphale was quite clear on that point.

The utterly delicious duck and the equally expensive wine Crowley had purchased to mark seven months since the Apocalypse-that-wasn’t did not change it. The prinsesstarta for dessert didn’t change it. Leaning back on the office couch, Aziraphale’s back pressed to Crowley’s chest with the demon’s chin resting on the crown of his head didn’t change it. Crowley’s his crow-black wings curled around them both like a blanket didn’t change it. 

“I’m an angel,” Aziraphale finished anxiously. “I’m not supposed to be running a bookshop with my lover. You tempted me to greed _and_ lust.”

“Didn’t have to tempt very hard,” Crowley said. “You’re happy, angel.”

Aziraphale tightened his fingers around Crowley’s. Framing it as a complaint was safer than gratitude. Still, if Crowley wanted an honest admission, Aziraphale wasn’t certain he could refuse over a-- a petty superstition, really.

“I am happy, may I be forgiven,” Aziraphale said as softly as he could and still be intelligible.  
He made himself breathe, even and steady, even though he didn’t want to.

Crowley’s arms and wings tightened around him briefly, then relaxed. But there was no holy fire, no miracle snatching everything out from under him. One second became ten, then fifteen. Aziraphale relaxed, tilting his head back to rest completely on Crowley.

Outside the window, snow began to fall.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The shouting man is played by Mark Pellegrino (Person of Interest) and is, in fact, American.


End file.
